Sins of the Fathers
by Blame Brampton
Summary: Famous or infamous, it can be hard living in the shadow of your parents in the wizarding world. Which is why it's all the more important to choose your school friends carefully, or to be accepting when they choose you.  Next-gen, SM/ASP, written in 2007
1. Chapter 1

**Essential Author's Notes: ** This story was written back in 2007, not long after Deathly Hallows was released and well before JKR gave name, let alone backstory to Astoria (or Asteria) Malfoy. Scorpius Malfoy's middle name was similarly up for grabs in those golden days.

Every chapter in this story corresponds to a 'fact' in Sansa1970's (Now libby-drew's) _20 Random Facts About Scorpius Malfoy_, which she wrote and then wished that someone would write into fic for her. She had been so staggeringly lovely to me that I leapt at the offer.

I would link to her original on ffnet, but she left, so I am afraid it's Google or else you can go to my lj (blamebrampton), follow the sidebar link to this story, and then the in-credits link to hers. Sounds like a lot of fash, I know, but it's worth it!

And if you're an American and find people fancying their cousins weird, just write it off as one of those weird British things like queuing.

**Optional Author's Notes:** This was my second piece of fanfiction, written before I noticed that the title chosen had been used for every third piece of fic in existence. I know better now!

This was also one of the earlier Next-gen fics written in my neck of fandom. Had I known what was to come in fic, I would definitely have had Scorpius and Albus meet anywhere but the train, and made Mrs Malfoy Estonian rather than French, even if it meant damning the running macaron jokes. Alas, seeing into the future only happens in stories and 'reality' TV.

Many thanks to jadzialove and painless_j who went above and beyond the call in spotting my appalling typos and random acts of cruelty to punctuation. And yes, there is an H/D sequel.

**Sins of the fathers**

I

When Scorpius Malfoy is five years old, it occurs to him that he should have four grandparents, not three. He asks his mother why he only has one grandfather. She answers him in her softly accented voice, "Your father's father died before you were born." She kisses the top of his head and that is the end of the matter to her.

But not to him.

When his father comes home from work that night, Scorpius waits until the day's furrows have left his brow and the smiling face is out to play, and then he asks if he could see a photo of his grandfather. The furrows come back. That has never happened before. "They were all destroyed in the war," his father says. "When the Manor was taken over by the Dark."

Scorpius has heard of the Dark. He has seen the marks of hexes burned into the walls of the cellar. His father says they stay as a reminder. That reminders are essential. He never quite explains what he's remembering.

"What was his name?" Scorpius asks.

His father picks him up and tosses him into the air. Scorpius tries to ask again, but he is too busy giggling.

"You can fly! Oh, no you can't!" his father chants the refrain of their old game to him, tossing and catching him until Scorpius is giggling too hard to call a rest.

When they are sitting, later, about to read a book to each other, Scorpius tries again. "Was your dad like you?"

His father appears to think for a moment before answering. "He was, once. And he loved his little boy very much, too."

"He must have been good, then," Scorpius decides.

There is a funny look on his father's face and then he flips his long fringe in front of his eyes and launches into the tiger game, and the evening dissolves into hunting and roaring.

II

When Scorpius is eleven, he sees Harry Potter in Diagon Alley. He is extremely cool about it, knocking over only one tray of exploding gumballs in Weasleys'. George Weasley is at the counter when it happens, and he makes jokes with Scorpius while they try to catch the balls before they can reach a critical speed.

Scorpius knows who George Weasley is, of course. He saw the Liberation Day special edition of _The Quibbler _that 3W financed the year before last, and he knows that 3W has put in a tender to provide upgraded equipment to the Aurors, because he saw the Owl that his Dad was poring over last week. When Scorpius's Dad bends down to help them tidy up, it becomes apparent that George Weasley knows who he is, too.

"Here to get your books, Master Malfoy?"

"And robes, and a new cauldron, and Dad says I can have extra books, too, so I can get ahead because it's good to read as much as you can in early years before there's too much homework …" Scorpius becomes aware he's going on, and sees the two grown-ups exchange a look over his head.

"Ye-es," George Weasley agrees in principle.

"And some extendable ears so I can hear if people are planning to play tricks on me," he adds in a very quiet voice.

"We _did_ study in Slytherin," his father is saying to Mr Weasley. "It wasn't all Dark Arts and goat sacrifices."

"Goat _sacrifices_ you say, Malfoy. Right."

When they start laughing he realises that he has missed another grown-up joke, and makes a mental note to work it out later.

"You'll be in Al's year," Mr Weasley is talking to him again. "My nephew, Albus. You make sure that you're nicer to him than your dad was to my brother."

"He started it."

Scorpius is astonished, he has never heard his father sound embarrassed before. George Weasley throws back his head and laughs. Then he sobers up for a few moments. He takes Scorpius's father's hand and shakes it.

"It's good to see you again," his voice is sincere. "I'm so sorry about what happened …"

"History isn't what happened, Weasley, it's what gets written. I'm all right." Scorpius's father is shaking the hand in his. Scorpius can't work out why it feels as though this is important.

Later, when they are in Flourish and Blotts, Scorpius is allowed to buy more books than he ever felt possible. His father seems distracted. That night, at the dinner table, his father drinks wine, which he never does, and then he leans over to him and says, in a very serious voice, "Beware the Potters. They steal everything you have and make it their own."

Scorpius is ashamed of his sudden panic, but he cannot help glancing over at his piles of fresh new things.

His mother kisses him on the cheek and adds under her breath, "He doesn't mean your books and parchment, darling."

III

He meets Al on the Hogwarts Express.

The small, black-haired boy barrels into his compartment and declares: "You're Scorpius Malfoy!

Scorpius agrees that he is.

"We need to be friends, or it will look stupid," the boy continues. "And my big brother will think he knows everything, when really he's not that smart."

Scorpius nods slowly. "OK," he begins. "Except I'm not sure who you are."

"I'm Albus Potter," the new boy puts out his hand, which Scorpius shakes politely. "Albus Severus Potter."

Scorpius blinks slowly. "We have the same middle name," he announces.

Al drops into the seat beside him. "Oh, well then we _have_ to be friends," he declares.

"I suppose we do," Scorpius smiles back. "Do you like Quidditch?"

"Oh yeah! My Aunty knows Victor Krum! And I've met him, and he was really nice." The record-holding player has recently signed a contract to coach the English team after a disastrous English World Cup outing, his name is like gold, and even works on Scorpius.

"Is he tall?"

"No, but he's really strong. And he's really fast." Albus stops himself before launching into his Short Essay on the Virtues of Krum, there'll be time for that later. "Do you know what house you want to be Sorted into?" he asks.

"I haven't really thought about it," Scorpius lies. "What about you?"

"If it's not Gryffindor, I may die," Al declares with feeling.

"I hope it's Gryffindor, then, I don't have any other friends." Scorpius is gratified when he makes Al laugh.

"Chocolate frog? I got a stack from my Dad, he says the trolley takes ages to get through the train." Albus offers a handful of the brightly wrapped sweets and Scorpius takes one.

"Thanks, I love these, but Mum says they'll rot my teeth."

"My Mum says everything good is bad for you. She doesn't like me reading comics or watching scary movies, but Dad doesn't mind."

Scorpius is entranced. "Your Dad lets you watch movies?"

Albus smiles, he realises that is a winning shot. "Oh yeah, we go to the cinema all the time. And we have a computer that you can just watch TV and things on." And he knows this is a risk, for while the Ministry is more relaxed about wizards and Muggle technology these days, it is still not _the_ _done thing_.

Scorpius leans close to him and whispers. "We have a projector and some days my Dad closes all the curtains and we watch old films. I like the Sherlock Holmes ones, with Basil Rathbone. Have you seen them?"

Albus has not. "Have you seen football?"

Scorpius has not. For a moment this stops conversation. Albus restarts it. "I could watch movies with you at your house in the hols, maybe, and you could watch football at my house. It's really good, it's like Quidditch without brooms but with really angry men with whistles."

"In the hols."

"Yeah, cos you have your friends over for hols, right?"

Scorpius is smiling. "Right."

IV

He hears his father's voice. "It was never like that, they feared Slytherin, but many of us worked against the Dark as much as they did. Don't believe what you read in the books. We never wrote any. It is the house where you can achieve greatness, where you can find true friends." Scorpius thinks of Uncle Gregory, and knows that his father was telling the truth.

He hears his mother's voice. "You are my brave little lion, so strong and so steadfast. In Gryffindor you will make friends who will last through your life, you will show everyone your courage, and they will be amazed at your resourcefulness." Scorpius thinks of Harry Potter, and knows that his mother was telling the truth.

He hears Professor Sinistra's voice. "Scorpius Malfoy" she calls. He goes to her, and sits on the stool. She drops the Hat onto his head, and he waits to be Sorted.

"Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw!" he thinks desperately.

"Ooh, yes!" the Hat agrees, "You'll do nicely there!"

Scorpius's smile beams across the room as his house is shouted to the hall. There are a few startled faces, more in Gryffindor than Slytherin, but the Ravenclaw table cheer and beckon him to them.

When Albus is sent to the Gryffindors, Scorpius cheers louder than anyone. They leave the hall together, and make plans to sneak between tables for alternate meals.

V

Scorpius gets lost on his third day. They have all been warned about the staircases and about rooms that come and go, and he has been prepared for that. No one thinks to mention to him that the castle architects were erratic believers in symmetry, and when he loses count of corners and sets off confidently down a hallway he doesn't know, his firm belief that it has to end up intersecting with familiar territory is proven to be baseless.

Not until he has attempted to find his way for two hours does he start to waver.

After three, he slides down against a wall and considers having a good cry.

"It's not fair!" he protests, having missed his last class and now worrying about dinner.

_It rarely is._

Scorpius leaps to his feet and looks about for the voice. He hasn't heard it normally; it seems to have come through his bones. That's never happened before …

_But this is hardly the worst fate to befall a student here. There is a bathroom where one student died and another one, who looked like you, nearly made it two._

Now it's coming through his feet. Scorpius has a sudden suspicion, he drops and presses himself along the castle floor.

"I'm lost," he says.

_Where are you meant to be?_

He's right. The voice comes through the stones. He answers: "Ravenclaw Tower."

_Easy. We go to the end of this hall …_

Scorpius gets to his feet and follows instructions.

_Turn right, now third left …_

Before long he is at the spiral staircase that leads to the common room.

_Rowena Ravenclaw wanted to look out from a high place so that she could study the stars and the winds, the voice tells him. Yet she ended up looking to see if those she loved would ever return to her. It broke her heart when her daughter did._

Scorpius is too young to understand the sorrow in the voice, but he can hear it for what it is. "I'm sorry. Thank you, it was very good to meet you."

_And you, I haven't spoken this freely to anyone for years._

Scorpius does understand loneliness. "I'll talk to you," he offers.

_I would enjoy that._

When he goes inside, he finds the prefects have just returned from searching for him, and allows himself to be patted and cleaned up, while they congratulate him for finding his own way back eventually. Instinct tells him that it would be unwise to mention the assistance he had. Voices are not the sort of thing it's best to talk about.

VI

The Harry Potter Rule means that first years are allowed to try out for the Quidditch team. The Second Years Are Bigger Rule means that Al and Scorpius spend the first half of the season sitting out the games; their prayers for plagues of stomach bugs to strike down senior members of the team go unanswered – Scorpius talks Albus out of a special order of 3W regurgitative sweets.

The first time Scorpius is told that he's a better flier than his Dad, he's gratified. His father taught him everything, yet never really understood Scorpius's love for the broom. It is never enough for Scorpius to know how to do something; he needs to see why it works. So when he flies, each time he pushes the limits to see if he can find the point where they will push back.

Scorpius knows Al is impressed, because Al's told him. He's good, too, but it's not in his blood. Al doesn't mind. It means that he can roll his eyes at his brother and his friend when they both start rhapsodising about velocities and angles. Scorpius knows that James Potter is less happy about this shared skill.

He doesn't realise how important it is to James until Emily Craddock, the Ravenclaw Seeker, finally answers months of fervent prayers and comes down with flu two days before the game against Gryffindor. Scorpius is given the nod, and the team are secretly pleased. They mutter that the boy has a certain something, even if Emily is a much better friend and they hope she gets well, soon.

Scorpius does not disappoint them. He flies beautifully, zipping past bludgers and confusing the Gryffindor Seeker with feints high and low. Several times he spots the Snitch, but deliberately avoids it for the first few, flying with great intent in the opposite direction until he is sure he has his opponent trained to chase his every move. He is astonished at how violent the game is in reality; bludgers seem to fly past him every few seconds. Never has he been so grateful that his father could afford the best broom on the market; he uses it to its fullest.

At last, with his trap set, Scorpius allows a look of triumph to cross his face and goes into a dive. The Gryffindor Seeker follows closely; her eyes as dazzled as his by the reflection of sunlight in the corner of the field he is aiming for. He allows her to catch him, then edge past. For added verisimilitude he gives a groan of despair, before kicking his broom upwards to where he knows the Snitch is waiting.

As he reaches out at full stretch he hears swearing behind him, and a sudden thump, as of something heavy being hit. His hand closes, and then the wind is knocked from him, and every direction is strange, and there is remorseless gravity, and then the pain makes itself known.

When he opens his eyes Madame Bones is holding one of his arms firmly while gently spelling the bones back together. He can hear yelling. He looks past her. Albus is yelling at James, and everyone is letting him.

"Beaters are meant to stop the other team, not kill them! You'd already lost! It was just out of spite!"

James mutters something about it not being his normal position, and him just making a mistake.

"You don't make mistakes with other student's lives!" Albus's voice is so loud that Scorpius thinks it can probably be heard in Hogsmeade.

"I know that!" James is yelling back. "It was an accident. I didn't mean it! Our family has had enough problems with bloody Malfoys!"

Scorpius listens more intently. There is something else being said here, something new.

"He is not his dad!" Al is yelling back. "We're not ours! He's my friend, and I will stop being your brother if you ever try to hurt him again!"

Madame Bones has been as distracted as everyone else. Her eyes are wide as she looks back down at Scorpius. "That boy's wrong," she mutters. "He's exactly like his father."

Later that night in the infirmary, James Potter comes up to visit him. He brings a bag of chocolate frogs.

"Al says you like these," he mentions as he hands them over shyly.

"Thank you," Scorpius replies. "I believe you that it was an accident."

James sits on the seat beside Scorpius's bed and looks at his shoes for a long time. "It wasn't entirely an accident," he admits. "I meant to hit you, just not that hard."

"Oh." Scorpius wishes he'd used his extendable ears more, now.

"You're a nice little kid, it's not your fault, but during the War your dad did something bad to my Dad, and I grew up with my Mum telling me to watch out for your family," James attempts to explain.

Scorpius is a little confused, "My Dad told me your dad was brave, and that they won because of him. What does your dad say about my Dad?"

James thinks for a few minutes. "He says he was brave, too. He says that what's been written down is not what happened. He said I should keep an eye out for you, make sure you're all right. I didn't do that very well."

Scorpius is reassuring. "Al keeps an eye out for me, you keep an eye out for Al, it's almost the same."

James Potter smiles at him, then. "You _are_ a nice kid. I told Al I was sorry, but I wanted to tell you, too. I was just jealous, and it was stupid. I think my Mum has it all wrong."

"I think …" Scorpius wants to confess this. "I think my Grandfather was a Death Eater."

"Well, yeah …" James is startled. "Everyone knows that. Your grandfather was Lucius Malfoy."

"Lucius …" Scorpius says it slowly. "No one uses that name in my house."

"My Dad won't say it, either. But my Mum does." James's face clouds over. "What did your dad say when you told him what happened?"

"Oh, nothing. I told Madame Bones that it was all just an accident and she agreed, so she told him I fell in the game, and then I told him I'd caught the Snitch first and he told me I did very well but to pay more attention to holding onto my broom next time. It was just a broken arm, you're not a real kid till you've broken your arm."

James looks at him for a long time. He stands to leave, but first he says: "You can be Al's best friend. I don't mind. And you are better at flying than me. But I'm better looking."

Scorpius laughs, and waves at James as he goes. He feels brilliant; which may be a side-effect of Madame Bones's medicines and three chocolate frogs, or may not.

He puts his good hand onto the castle wall and tells it what has happened that day, a ritual he conducts every night. The castle is glad he is all right.

"What did my Dad do to Al's dad?" he asks the stones.

_He chose his family_, they reply.

VII

In Second Year, Emeritus Professor McGonagall is taken ill. She is wandering one of the courtyards at the time, and there is no one there to see as she presses her hands to her chest and slumps to the ground.

Scorpius sees it, though. He feels the vision being pushed at him through his feet. He stands up and pushes his chair over in his hurry. Professor Flitwick glares at him, then sees the look on his face. "What is it?" he asks.

"She's terribly ill!" Scorpius replies. "She'll need Madame Bones, she's in the East Yard!"

Flitwick looks at him for a long moment. "Detention if this is a ruse," he declares, then runs with Scorpius to the yard, with other students running for Madame Bones.

Scorpius is astonished at how fast his head of house can move. He only just beats him to Professor McGonagall's side. She is so still and pale, but her breath is still coming in and out.

Professor Flitwick charms the fallen leaves around them into a pillow that he places beneath her head. He holds her hands and waits for Madame Bones. "She won't be long, Minerva. Hold on, old friend," he whispers.

Madame Bones arrives at a sprint, and Scorpius is bundled to one side. He takes his classmates back indoors. He crosses his fingers. He suggests they do, too. He touches the castle wall as he walks through it. "Thank you," he whispers.

That night at dinner the Headmistress tells them that Minerva McGonagall is expected to recover. Professor Trelawney seeks Scorpius out and encourages him to pursue a career in Divination. She is a kind old witch and he doesn't have the heart to tell her that he has no skill, instead he writes up his experience for homework, describing very clearly the effect of the vision without disclosing its source.

With amazed congratulations the order of the day, Scorpius takes a while to realise that one person isn't there. He puts his hand against the wall and looks for him. Al is outside in the hallway. Scorpius goes to him.

"Aren't you hungry?"

Al shrugs, he looks embarrassed. "They say you knew about McGonagall because you can read minds. Is that true?"

Scorpius laughs loudly. "Of course not! It was just one of those odd magic things that happen here, just a vision."

"So you can't tell what other people are thinking?"

Scorpius rolls his eyes. "I can't tell what other people already _know_ other people are thinking half the time. People are illogical."

Albus is grinning. "That's good, because that would be weird."

"No weirder than you. Come on, you'll miss dessert."

That night the castle thanks him for listening. _She has been here for so long, I do not want to miss her before I must_, it tells him.

VIII

Before he goes home at the end of second year, the castle shares a favourite memory with him. Rowena Ravenclaw is sitting with Godric Gryffindor, leaning against his chest. She has taken off the veil and wimple that she usually wears in the memories the castle shares, and her hair pools in the older wizard's lap. _If only I had spent as much time learning about people_, she sighs.

_We can't live our children's lives for them. We can only do our best for them, and hope it's enough_, Gryffindor replies, putting his arm around her.

_And when it's not?_

_They must make their own choices, my friend,_ he tells her, and kisses her forehead gently.

Scorpius asks the castle why it showed him this moment, but it is quiet.

As the previous year he spends the first week of holidays with the Potters, then Al spends the second week at the Manor. Life in the Potter house is fun and easy. James, Al and he fly obstacle courses through the small forest behind the house, and when Lily follows them, Scorpius lags behind with her, knowing she hasn't regained her confidence since her fall.

Rose and Hugo visit, and their dad is actively nice to Scorpius. This makes all the kids laugh, since they have heard him chanting "Different Malfoy" to himself as he walks up to the house on his visits.

Mrs Potter is kind, but she never once asks after his family. When it is time for them to leave for the Manor, Mr Potter takes them to Diagon Alley where they are met by Scorpius's mum. The night before Scorpius hears Mr Potter complaining to Mrs Potter about the arrangement. "It's stupid," he says. "I see him every single day at work."

"That's work," she answers. And her voice is hard, like Scorpius has never heard it before. "I am not having that man in this house."

Scorpius has done his research. He knows what Lucius Malfoy did to Ginny Weasley. He cannot blame her. The only thing he can do to make it up is be a good friend to her children. He also does the dishes every night of his visit. When he leaves, she kisses the top of his head.

Scorpius's mum kisses the top of Al's head when they meet. She laughs at how he has grown. She shakes Mr Potter's hand and thanks him for taking care of her boy, promises to take good care of his. She looks between Al and Harry Potter, a wry smile playing about her lips.

The next week is a joy. Albus's delight in the Manor's gardens surpasses even Scorpius's. He insists they play outside every day, even when it rains. They explore all the rooms remaining from Al's last visit, except the cellar; Scorpius doesn't think Al needs any lessons he might learn there.

A brief shadow descends when Scorpius's mother suggests the boys should go into town for lunch with their two fathers one day.

"No," says Scorpius's father.

"But that is foolish," his mother cajoles. "You work together, he thinks highly of you, you think highly of him, your children are best friends."

"Mr Potter and I do not socialise. We have an excellent working relationship, that is all."

Scorpius knows that is the no-argument voice.

His mother knows it, too, and gives up. She drinks more wine than she is used to that night. As she sends the boys to bed she smiles very carefully. "Never stop being kind to each other," she tells them. "So long as you can manage that, you will be friends."

On the second-last night Scorpius wakes to find Al shaking his shoulder. "Come and see!" he is exclaiming.

They look out the window and watch a meteorite shower flame out through the atmosphere. The old, thick glass with diamond leading is hard to see through, so they open the windows and wrap a blanket around themselves for warmth. In the still quiet of late night it is as though they are the only humans for miles.

"I don't think your dad likes me very much," Scorpius finds himself saying.

Al hugs him. "He _does_ like you," he insists. "He just finds it strange. I think your dad might have been good friends with mine once, and I think maybe they had a fight. Maybe it was about my Mum. I don't know. But you look so much like him that sometimes I think it makes my Dad feel sad."

"My dad looks at us that way, too," Scorpius says. He is looking at the new pieces of information that Al has offered, trying to make them fit. They make a pattern, but he's not sure if it's wholly right. "I think he misses your dad sometimes."

Al agrees. The lights have finished, and they are frozen. They bundle back into Scorpius's bed and plan to stay awake till dawn telling ghost stories. In ten minutes, they are both asleep.

The next morning Scorpius's Grandmother Malfoy is there. She demands that both the boys call her Narcissa, though she allows Ma'am from Scorpius. She is enchanted by their story of the morning's skywatching. Astronomy was her favourite subject, she confides. She is secretly very happy that Scorpius is a Ravenclaw.

This is the first time she has spoken like this in front of Scorpius. He knows it's thanks to Al. He is sorry his friend will be leaving tomorrow.

Narcissa promises to sit up with them that night and show them some new constellations. When Al asks if she believes in fates being written in the stars, she laughs, and although it starts off with a bitter edge, her laugh becomes free and happy. "We make our own fates," she tells them. "If you learn nothing else in this life, you learn that."

After a moment she adds: "Eventually."

That night Narcissa takes Scorpius and Al up onto the roof of the Manor. Scorpius's parents come, too. She shows them Mars and Mercury, who are still close from that afternoon's conjunction. Then she talks to them about the mathematics that govern the stars' movements. All four are entranced, she is erudite and passionate, and sounds like a keen schoolgirl.

"Did you want to study Astronomy when you were our age?" Al asks.

"Yes, but then I met my husband, and I wanted to be a mother," she answers. Her voice is gentle, but it is clear that is the whole of the answer she will give.

"I'm glad you did," Al smiles at her. "Because if you hadn't, then Scorp's dad would never have been born, and then he wouldn't have been born, and I'd have had no one to be friends with at school except my brother, who is awful."

Scorpius is mortified that his best friend is buttering up his grandmother.

Narcissa is busy laughing, and questioning just how awful James Potter could possibly be.

Scorpius's father is looking horrified. "Scorp?" he manages.

Scorpius blushes even more. "Worst nickname ever," he moans. "I was all for M, or even Score, or they could just call me Malfoy, but no one does."

His father just looks at him, slightly stricken.

"It's all Scorp, could you help me with my homework? Scorp, do you know where I left my shoes? Scorp, make sure you win today I've got a galleon on the game …"

"I tried to get Scoop going, but it didn't catch on," Al tells Narcissa.

"Scoop?" she is intrigued.

"Yeah, because of how Scorpius is a really good Seeker, but also how he can spot things."

"What 'things'?"

"Like the time he found Professor McGonagall when she was sick, and the time he found Lucy Bell when she was locked in a cupboard by two third years, and the time he found Miss Lovegood's little boy when she came to visit Professor Longbottom and he toddled off, and he's always finding things people lose …" even Albus notices the silence now.

"And yet he's never found the time to mention any of this," says Scorpius's dad, with one eyebrow raised at his young son.

"Surprise!" Scorpius grins wildly. "Ooh, look, galaxy!" he points upwards at random, then moves his finger to the left in response to his grandmother's subtle head gestures.

"And?" his father waits.

"I just know where things are at Hogwarts," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "Professor Trelawney keeps pouncing on me, but I can't tell the future, I can only tell you what's happening at Hogwarts."

"All the time?"

"Just when I'm there. I just know. Is that all right?"

His father looks at him gently. "Of course it is. You're just talented. We knew that."

Scorpius smiles. A little later, he and Al are sent to bed, they walk of with arms casually tossed over each other's shoulders, heads close, plotting ways to stay in touch until school goes back.

Narcissa smiles at them as they go past. "They remind me of you and him at their age," she tells her son.

"I believe we hated each other with passionate intensity at their age," he corrects her.

Scorpius can only just hear her reply. "Oh, that's right, it was later …"

Late that night Scorpius wakes up suddenly. Al and he are sharing the big bed so they can maximise gossiping time, but it's not Al muttering in his sleep that's woken him. It's his mother, yelling angrily. He can't hear what she's saying, although he can hear when she switches from English to French. He hears his father's reply, though: "Leave Harry out of this!"

It is hard to go back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

IX

He asks the castle about Ginny Weasley in his second week of third year. It remembers her well, so brave and so frightened at the same time. He watches as she writes her laments and loves into a lethal journal. That was Lucius Malfoy, he realises. A man who could damn an eleven year old girl without thinking twice. No wonder his grandmother is a tiny bit odd.

He wonders at his father keeping all this bottled away and is filled with love for him. Scorpius knows that his father has done it for him. It cannot be easy. Not like Al's father. There are statues of his parents.

The castle tells him he is wrong. It shows him a little dark-haired boy, poring over photographs, tears streaming down his cheeks. It shows him the same boy hissing to a tap and sliding down a pipe to rescue the girl who would grow up to be his wife. Scorpius recognises Mr Weasley, Rose and Hugo's dad, as the red-haired boy who is with Harry Potter, but he can't place the teacher in the memory.

It shows him that the boy is scared, and will run any risk not to feel alone.

"Show me my father," he asks the castle.

_Are you sure?_ the castle asks him. He is.

The boy does look very much like Scorpius, but the man leaning over him is larger in every way than the man the boy will grow up to be. Lucius Malfoy's features are handsome but broad and uncompromising, not like the fine-boned questioning face his son will wear more than 20 years in the future. Scorpius realises how much like Narcissa his father looks.

Lucius is angry. _"Sacked! There have been Malfoys running this school practically since the day it was built, and they have the nerve to sack me! The other governors have been bought off by Dumbledore, I can feel it. Wait until the Dark Lord returns, Draco. They will run to me then and beg forgiveness, and I shall be merciful to those on their knees …"_

The boy is nervous. _"Can't you just tell them they should take you back? We don't need anyone else, Father. You should be in charge of things, not some Dark Lord."_

Lucius laughs richly and kisses his son's forehead. _"Whatever greatness I could achieve by myself will be as nothing to the rewards I will find at his side. You will see,"_ he promises, then sweeps from the room.

Only the school and now Scorpius hear the reply. _"If the Dark Lord is so mighty, how can one of my classmates beat him?"_

The next day Scorpius convinces Lily to come with him to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She scouts for the all-clear and they find the tap with the snake etched into it. She is impressed when he mimics the words he heard her father use and the entrance opens, but she is not interested in exploring it. Her Mum's version of the story was terrifying enough. She does find Scorpius a rope ladder, though, and she keeps his secrets when he disappears for hours to study, or just to read and reflect. She doesn't even tell Al, who wastes hours looking all over the school for Scorpius one evening.

Scorpius begs the castle to tell him if Al is ever looking for him again, even if he has said that he wants to be alone and undisturbed. He lies to Al and tells him that he fell asleep over books. Al is just relieved Scorpius is all right, that he isn't spending time alone with Lily, because he isn't having his best friend status overturned by anyone.

Lily is banished by Al from Scorpius's company to spend time with Hugo, which she says she doesn't mind in the slightest, since they are both Uncle George's favourites.

Rose Granger-Weasley warns the boys that the young ones are not to be trusted, and devises brilliant plans to thwart their regular practical jokes. She becomes a hero to Hufflepuff when she bursts into their common room armed with antidotes for the 3W test sweets that have made their way into their house sugar stash. Scorpius makes her promise not to reveal how she found out about the sudden onset of mass vomiting, in return for helping her cover-up her brother and cousin's guilt. Scorpius is relieved when Al is not put out that he and Rose are friends, but Al expects Ravenclaws to stick together.

Scorpius has regular Advanced Transfiguration classes with Emeritus Professor McGonagall. When he is not shifting cups to candlesticks and feathers to sparrows, she tells him entertaining stories of his cousins Teddy Lupin and Sirius Black, two of her favourite old students.

Scorpius wishes he'd met Sirius, who the Professor describes as a wild child with a huge motorbike and a deep and abiding love for his friends. "He sounds like Al," he tells her.

"You remind me of him a little," she tells him. "Except your family are much kinder than his were. I was wrong about your father."

X

Rose Granger-Weasley is screaming his name down a hallway two months later. He runs towards her, and she grabs his shoulders, barely able to get the words out through her panting. "Hugo, Lily, snakes, hurry!" she drags him back the way that she has come. He helps her run, and pulls his wand out at the ready.

Images flash at him as he runs. His young friends are balanced on top of a basin in Myrtle's bathroom. The floor is a writhing mass of adders. Al and James and two Gryffindor prefects are at the door with wands drawn. There are containment spells keeping the adders from leaving the room or from climbing the walls, but, from somewhere, more adders arrive every second. Al and James are scared. Hugo and Lily are terrified.

Rose pushes the prefects out of the way and thrusts Scorpius forward. "She told me," she gasps. "I'm sorry, but please …"

Scorpius has already dropped to his knees and begun to whisper to the snakes. Instead of their angry whipping, they are stilling at the sound of his voice. He notices that it is not a case of more snakes slithering into the room; it is a spell, their numbers increase every minute.

Once they are quiet he calls out to Lily and asks her what she's done. "It's one of Uncle George's tricks!" she calls back.

James swears behind him. "That's meant to be rubber snakes! I'll kill him! Dad will kill him! Aunty Hermione will kill him twice!"

Scorpius and Rose can just hear Hugo's muttering under James's rant. They entreat Al to keep him quiet. White-faced, he does. "Say it again, Hugo," Rose calls out to him.

"I wanted to make it scarier," he confesses, filled with remorse. Lily pats him as gently as she can while clinging to a tap.

"Scorp …" Rose's voice is entreating.

He turns around to Al, but Al is looking so sick and green that he doesn't even ask. "Bugger …" he mutters, and steps over the containment spell at the door, then tiptoes his way across the drowsy snakes. Some of them politely coil on top of each other to make way for his feet as he whispers soothingly. At least, he tells himself, at least they won't kill me. They'll just make me very very ill. This could be worse. Hugo could have been reading up on American or Australian snakes.

Scorpius keeps a relaxed smile on his face for Hugo and Lily's benefit, and makes a mental note to have their older siblings destroy any books in their homes on non-British reptiles.

He hugs them briefly as he reaches their basin, makes sure they're all right, tells them to hold on. Then he moves two along, and whispers to the snake on the tap. It swings out and the passageway is open beneath them. The snakes are up to his knees now, and bunting against him, having run out of room to avoid him.

"If you would be so kind; you will find below well appointed and suitable for your needs," he tells them.

With hisses of relief they make their way down the pipe, into the cavern below. When they are all gone, he closes the passageway and slides down the wall to the rather damp floor. Ghostly eyes peer at him through fogged glasses.

"You were so brave!" Myrtle tells him.

"I really don't like snakes," he tells her.

The two prefects haul him to his feet and congratulate him. Rose and James are simultaneously hugging and shaking their little siblings, James is crying far more than Rose is. Al is still at the door, still looking green. There are many other students there now, the last part of the rescue has had an audience of dozens.

"You spoke to the snakes," Al says.

Scorpius nods. "I heard someone else do it, and I realised I could, too."

"And that's the Chamber where my mum …"

Rose speaks over him. "That's the Chamber where my Mum and Dad helped win the War by finding basilisk fangs. That's the Chamber where your dad defeated that same basilisk. That's the Chamber that was a perfectly legitimate part of this school before Tom Riddle used it for his own ends, and that's the Chamber that helped your friend save your sister."

Her voice is loud and carries out into the hallway. Scorpius realises not for the first time that he will always be the tiniest bit in love with Rose Granger-Weasley, and also that this will never begin to conquer the abject fear she inspires in him. She and James bustle out with Lily and Hugo tucked under their arms, calling for blankets and chocolate. The prefects set about shooing the onlookers away.

Soon, only Al is left with Scorpius. "Is that where you've been going?" he asks, still looking rather green.

"When I need a break," Scorpius isn't sure why he feels so guilty.

"Without me," Al goes on.

Ah, yes, that would be it. "I'm never going back," Scorpius declares.

Al is suddenly beside him, hugging him fiercely. "Don't you dare!" he whispers into his ear before letting him go.

"Can't. It's full of snakes."

They stop laughing by the time they reach the infirmary. Lily and Hugo are declaring their lack of harm, and Rose and James are just as adamant they need checking out for shock. George Weasley is summoned, and the two sets of parents, too. Scorpius is suddenly being hugged from both sides by mothers, and patted on the back by fathers. He insists that Rose is the brains of the operation, but that just drags another body into the mob embrace.

Al rescues him by announcing that it's time for dinner. Madame Bones concedes that her charges may go down for food, but only if their parents accompany them. She is winking at Mrs Granger-Weasley as she says this, and Scorpius remembers that parents and teachers have friends, too.

Rumour beats them all to the Great Hall. Mr Potter's entrance is greeted with wild cheering, amid which Professor Longbottom grabs the four adults and drags them to the staff table.

Rose and Scorpius are delayed by Professor Flitwick who calls them over to him. "Well done," he says. "I'm proud of the two of you. Clear thinking and well-organised teamwork. Malfoy, I'd like you to report on the learning process for Parseltongue, is it instinctive or is it acquired? Weasley, I think a paper on the dangers of spell adaptation would prove enlightening to some of the younger members of this school."

Scorpius and Rose both feel their head of house to be one of the wisest adults they know.

It's Scorpius's turn to eat with Al tonight, and Rose accompanies him. But when they reach the Gryffindor table Peter Crabbley and Eoin Flaherty only shift one seat along. Rose stands back and motions for Scorpius to sit beside Al. Crabbley slides back into the empty space and declares loudly: "No room for Ravenclaws here. Why don't you try Slytherin?"

Rose accidentally slaps Crabbley and Flaherty over the back of their heads with her plate. "So sorry. Terrible Ravenclaw reflexes. You know how it is. Shall we?" she offers an arm to Scorpius, who takes it.

Al stands up, glaring in fury. He takes his crockery and cutlery from the table and has the same accident as his cousin. Then he takes Al's other elbow and the three of them set off for the Ravenclaw table.

Lily, Hugo and James follow quickly. "Bugger that lot," says Lily to the Ravenclaws. "I'm dying for a spot of intelligent conversation." Cheers and laughter welcome them.

Scorpius spots Mr Potter watching them from the staff table. He smiles reassuringly. Mr Potter smiles back, but he looks worried.

When the Headmistress calls Scorpius and Rose to their feet and awards them one hundred house points for their courage, most of the school cheers. Some of the Slytherins begin to chant "One of us!" at Scorpius. Some of the Gryffindors agree: "One of them!" joins the cry.

Scorpius waits until they are mostly quiet before declaring to the whole Ravenclaw table, in a voice that carries throughout the hall: "What can I say? They're desperate. They can see the Quidditch Cup being snatched away again before their very eyes."

The Ravenclaw cheers overwhelm any other noise. Scorpius sneaks a look. Harry Potter is grinning at him. He grins in reply, then turns back, Al is beaming up at him, too.

The next morning an Owl arrives with a long letter from his father. He asks if Scorpius is all right no less than eight times. He seems to know everything that has happened, and in detail.

Albus also gets a letter from his father. It tells him to take care of Scorpius.

James is outraged. "How many times do I have to tell him I have that covered?" he fumes. "If it wasn't for Lily and Hugo being idiots, I would do nothing else with my days."

"That's right, James, he's so unfair," murmurs Maisie Carrington, part of James's growing Ravenclaw fanclub.

Rose leans in to mutter at Al and Scorpius. "I feel sure things will be calmer at the Gryffindor table now. Can't we send him back?"

Al and Scorpius watch as Emily Craddock piles bacon onto James's plate while another girl fetches him kedgeree and eggs from further up the table. "I just don't think he'll go," Scorpius is forced to admit.

"I could strangle him," Rose mutters.

"That would take the heat off me!" Scorpius laughs brightly.

His shoulder is tapped from behind. It's Lily. She forces him to move along and squeezes into the space between him and Al. She drops her eating gear to the table with a clatter and throws her arms around Scorpius, pressing her lips to his cheek. "I forgot to say thank you!" she announces, before turning to the meal.

Albus catches Rose's eye. "If you're serious about homicide, I'm fine with being an only child," he tells her.

XI

Scorpius is reading when he realises the castle is trying to get his attention. "Not right now," he tells it gently, "unless it's important."

The castle shows him a slim, dishevelled boy running riotously through its hallways, looking for someone.

"Oh, thanks." Scorpius pats the wall fondly.

_He's two minutes away_, it tells him.

Scorpius is at the bottom of the Ravenclaw staircase by the time the running figure sags against the balustrade, gasping for breath. "Hi, Al," he greets his friend cheerfully.

"That's – uncanny –" Al pants. Then he straightens up. "You have to come with me. Right now. I have found the best thing." Al doesn't wait for an answer but simply drags his friend along. "I knew it was here, but not where it was. Actually, I thought it was destroyed, but it was just that one version. And anyway, James doesn't know and he is going to die when he finds out. If we tell him. Although, why Dad didn't tell me …"

"Albus!" Scorpius is shouting now, and they have both begun to jog. "What on Earth are you on about?"

Al grins widely, all devilry. "Just wait!" and drags him along at a run.

A few minutes later Scorpius is deposited beside a battered tapestry. "Wait," Al tells him, and then walks up and down the hallway, concentrating intently and whispering to himself. A doorway appears. Scorpius is amazed.

Al is beaming at him. "It's the Room of Requirement; remember it from the War stories? I found it, and it still works." He takes Scorpius's arm and leads him through the doors. "I asked it for the perfect room!"

The inside is a terrifying glance into the subconscious mind of Albus Severus Potter.

"You are a madman," Scorpius tells his companion.

Huge sofas are littered around the room. A great brass machine against one wall bears taps labelled "Coffee", "Tea", "Hot Chocolate" "Iced Chocolate", "Orangeade" and "Lemonade". Beside it is a sideboard packed with mugs and glasses. Games boards cover one large table, while an enormous wizard's train set chugs around its tracks, avoiding landslides and bearing down on tiny shrieking heroines tied to the rails.

A team of house-elves bustles in, one bearing a large jar of sweets and the others carrying jugs of drinks which are poured into the brass machine. They bow cheerfully to Scorpius, who wonders exactly how much of his soul Al has sold to achieve this much favouritism.

Stacks of Quidditch magazines and annuals are piled untidily about, and on one wall, a long row of broomsticks of varying designs, plus tool kits and cleaning equipment for polishing and tinkering. The ceiling is a masterpiece: it can't be less than seventy feet high, and broad oak beams curve down from its central axis in arcs and loops that beg to be flown through.

At the far end of the hall there is a small writing desk, with a bookshelf beside it and a good lamp. Scorpius walks down to it and finds that the desk is stocked with quills and parchment. "For your homework?" he raises an eyebrow.

"Don't be stupid," Al grins. "That's your bit."

Al throws him a vintage Firebolt. "Race you round the room!" he cries, jumping on his own, newer model.

Scorpius is aloft and chasing before he's even properly mounted his broom, and they are both laughing like lunatics as they loop in and out of the graceful oak curves. Scorpius beats Albus by the narrowest of margins, and he is flying hard, so Al doesn't mind that he has lost. They come to a stop at the drinks machine, and both select Lemonade.

"Why no water?" Scorpius asks.

"Common as muck. You can pop outside or ask the house-elves yourself."

"Why no pumpkin juice?"

"Cos you're allergic. I've sworn off it in case there's a terrible case of mixed glasses."

"You've sworn off it because it's not full of sugar and you found out it was healthy."

"There may be an element of that, yes."

"Why no butterbeer?"

"Common."

"Milk?"

"Common."

"Iced coffee?"

"Destroys the good name of coffee."

"You are so selfish," Scorpius grins. "What about when you invite all your friends and relatives over?"

Albus shrugs. "Not sure I want to, it's nice having somewhere that's just for us. You can study if you want to, and I can keep busy when you need to do your work."

Scorpius's smile slowly takes over his face.

He's moving without meaning to.

"Oh, I have the best idea. Let's see your perfect room!" Al is dragging him towards the door.

"But what about this one?" Scorpius is dragging his heels.

"It'll still be here!"

"But I'm not sure I actually require a room, I think the castle only gives it to you if you need one!"

"Scoop," Albus stops beside him in the doorway, "You're the equal smartest kid in our year, I never give you time to study, and when you're in your common room people are either asking you for help with their homework or to find their quills. Thanks to my sister and cousin being idiots, you had to fill your study place with snakes, you deserve another one. That's why I went looking for the Room in the first place."

Scorpius leans against the wall. He can feel the Castle chuckling. "Well, then, I'll give it a go," he declares.

With mounting excitement, he walks up and down the hall three times, muttering to himself. He opens the doors when they appear and Al follows him in.

"Oh …" Scorpius is rapt.

"You are kidding!" Albus is horrified.

Row after row of shelves stretch away into the distance, all laden with books. At the end of every second row is a small desk with a good lamp, comfortable chair and an adequate supply of writing materials. Near the doorway is a single large sofa and table, bearing the same jar of sweets and a text on Quidditch strategies. Scorpius walks straight to the first shelf and tentatively touches the spines of the books.

"Oh that's it - Lily can have you. I'm finding a new best friend," Albus exclaims.

"Excellent," Scorpius teases him, reaching for the nearest volume. "She's a girl, that means that at some point there'll be experimental snogging. I wonder what it's like?"

"You are _such_ an idiot." Al grabs Scorpius's robes, pulls him close and presses his lips against his friend's. For the first time in his life, Scorpius drops a book. Al lets him go. "Girl kisses are just like that, only feebler, and with a lot more giggling."

Scorpius has no words to convey the suddenly obvious fact that he has no interest whatsoever in Lily Potter's kisses.

Al bends to pick up Scorpius's dropped book, which is time enough for Scorpius to walk quickly to the far end of the private library, looking for a dark corner that will hide the red washing over his face.

Al's voice follows him: "I've changed my mind. I don't care that you're an idiot. I like your house too much - I'm keeping you. All right?"

"Right," Scorpius calls back, amazed at how even his voice is. "Besides, you'd have to hang out with your brother's friends if you ditched me."

Al joins him in the aisle, leaning against the shelf marked Charms, Cu-He. "That's true," he says. "And who'd give me flying tips? And who'd keep you from reading yourself into an early grave?"

Scorpius smiles wryly. "I thought this was all about finding me a place to read uninterrupted."

Al nods. "I should leave you to it."

"Or … we could go outside and I could show you the Krum inside turn again. I can come back and study when it's not so sunny."

"That would be great," Albus's smile stretches all the way to his eyes again. They walk towards the doorway together. "So, you like it?" Al asks.

"It's brilliant!"

"That's good." Albus pauses. "Sorry."

Scorpius is walking ahead of him. "Are you kidding? This is _so_ much better than the Chamber of Secrets."

"Oh. Yeah, yeah it is."

That night Scorpius presses his hand against the castle wall tentatively and asks if there is something horribly wrong with him. _Not at all_, it answers. _What can be wrong about a kiss?_

The castle shows him scenes of kisses it has seen. He sees Albus's parents, and Rose's, too. There is Professor McGonagall, very young, with a young man only a little older; it is impossible to think of her that age. There is James and Emily Craddock, and James and Maisie Carrington, and James and … is that a sixth year? There is a girl with dusky skin and huge eyes in the Ravenclaw common room tentatively brushing the lips of a slighter blonde who looks somehow familiar. There is a teacher in tattered robes, passionately embracing a man with black hair, and there, fleetingly, is himself and Albus, except the castle is looking at them from below, they're not really that tall.

_Friendship and love, that's all,_ it tells him. _And if you are afraid, just wait until you aren't._

"I don't want him to think I'm an idiot," Scorpius whispers.

_Albus has never thought that you are an idiot_, the stones tell him, and they are serious and truthful.

XII

Slytherin come out in favour of Ravenclaw for the finals of the Quidditch Cup. Anything is better than Gryffindor, they say, and they like Malfoy.

"Even if you're pale and bookish," Lester Biggs, the Slytherin captain teases him.

"Pale, bookish, yet wiped your team from the pitch in fifteen minutes," Scorpius smiles brightly.

There are rude hand gestures, but they are made without malice and Biggs waves his Ravenclaw flag as he walks off to find a seat. Scorpius has been even-handed in his treatment of his schoolmates. Most of them like him, and the ones who think he's evil are either intrigued or tend to hide when he's about. Anyone who can convince that many people he's guileless, they theorise, is not to be trusted.

The rest of the Ravenclaw team arrives and Scorpius follows them into the changing room. Shinpads, kneepads, elbowpads go on. Brooms are checked. Extra body armour is strapped to those who will need it. Scorpius slips on his Quidditch robes and feels the rush of anticipation that precedes every game. He smoothes down the blue garment, turns his bronze lapels out. Taps his toes firmly into his boots.

"Three simple instructions," Mari Bott tells her team. "Hold to our strategies, don't lose your heads, and don't let those flashy gits distract you."

Her team murmurs their agreement and waits for her usual oration on the importance of working together. She looks at them impatiently. "That's it! We've got a Cup to win!"

"Yes, Captain!" they cheer her this time, and Scorpius is filled with nervous energy as he walks out onto the pitch, broom in hand.

Mari and Nathan Spinnet, the Gryffindor captain, shake hands in the centre. Scorpius nods at James, his opposing Seeker, and Albus, whose excellent work as Keeper has in no small part brought their team to the final. The call to mount brooms goes out, and Scorpius is aloft at the first sound of the whistle.

Beneath him, Mari has grabbed the Quaffle and is flying fast. He can hear the commentator: "Ogden smacks a Bludger at Bott, who avoids it in a lovely spin, nice flying! and there's Carrington in support, but Bott is taking the shot herself and it's - OH! Brilliant save by Potter the younger and now Spinnet is moving the Quaffle out of the Gryffindor danger zone …"

Scorpius focuses on the seemingly aimless flight of James Potter. He recognises the potential here - their styles are very much alike. They both prefer to feint, they both rely on misdirection. They both fly nearly as well as each other. Scorpius knows he is a tiny bit better, but James has longer arms, and enough weight to make the difference in a dive.

He decides to fly up and sit beside him.

"Good day for it," he chats pleasantly.

"You're not going to distract me," James tells him cheerfully.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Scorpius replies.

"Crap ..." James mutters as the blue-banner waving part of the crowd below goes wild. Maisie Carrington has intercepted Spinnet's pass to Rufford and gone on to score.

"Bad luck," Scorpius mutters, glancing about idly. The Cup is theirs now, if he can catch the Snitch. When Ravenclaw's Laura Wadcock snatches the Quaffle from a missed pass, Scorpius can feel the tension run through the audience. He almost looks down at the state of play, especially when a goal is scored, instead he looks across at James, whose face is an open book.

Scorpius kicks against the air, throwing his broom sideways in a roll that gets across and ahead of James in the one move. The Snitch is maddeningly close, yet so erratic in its flight. At any moment it could dart past him and towards James.

Below them the spectators have noticed the pursuit and bellows of "Go Eagles!" and "Go Lions!" begin until it is all one thrilling cacophony.

The snitch plummets and both Seekers are in close formation with it. They stream through the centre of the play below, neatly missing Mari, who has just intercepted a pass between Piers Duke and Merewyn Rufford if the commentary is to be believed.

James edges to the lead by virtue of greater mass, but when the Snitch climbs again it is Scorpius who is ahead, his skinniness proving a boon for once. Then the Snitch jags right, and it is in front of James, only a little out of reach, and Scorpius can only reach it if he moves his broom across into the other Seeker's line, but they are so high, and James has one hand outstretched, and if he should slip ...

The crowd screams with either glee or fury as Scorpius barrel rolls across James, reaching out his hand while upside down to snatch the Snitch inches before the Gryffindor's fingers can close on it. He swings upright again and holds the golden treasure aloft, laughing wildly.

James is laughing, too. "You jammy git, that was amazing! Damn you and well done!"

And then he is mobbed on his way back to Earth. Mari nearly falls off her broom, she is hugging him so hard. Charles Derwent and Ryan Timms use their bats to form an arch for him to fly under, and Laura and Maisie are swooping around him in complicated loops. Rose has thrown her Keeper's gloves to the ground and is hugging every part of him not already claimed by Mari. Scorpius concentrates on flying so he can get them all to the ground.

There things become even more chaotic. Rose kisses him joyfully and dances about, Mari promises she will do his Potions homework _forever_, Professor Flitwick joins the crush, and the Gryffindors come over to shake the team's hands, "Good job, well flown," is traded back and forth.

Al shakes his head at him in mock dismay. "You are trying to get us disowned. Dad may actually kill James."

Lester Biggs claps Scorpius on the back and pushes a black cashmere scarf into his hands. "Fifteen galleons!" he crows, "and Margaret Tyndall owes me a date. I knew you'd do it!"

One of the younger Slytherins who is always following Lester presses a butterbeer bottle into Scorpius's hands. "Have a drink," he says.

He takes a mouthful and immediately realises that it's not butterbeer. His mouth is itching, he spits it out over his boots and the shoes of the younger Slytherin. Lester laughs, but Scorpius is gasping for breath now, and Lester is horrified and shouting at his housemate: "What was in that?"

"It's just pumpkin juice," comes the sulky reply.

Scorpius can just hear the voices over his own ragged breaths. "He's allergic!" Lester is shouting. "You know that, everyone knows that!"

"I thought he'd just throw up! It was a joke!"

"Scoop?" Al catches him as his knees start to fold. It's strange, his throat seems to be closing in on itself. That can't be good, he reasons.

"Professor! Rosie! Where's Madame Bones?" Al is shouting over everybody, and he's holding him now. Scorpius realises he's on the ground, in Al's lap. That's nice. If only he could breathe.

"Scorpius Malfoy!" a sharply burred voice makes him focus. Professor McGonagall is there and her hands are pulling back his robes from his throat and chest. It's nice and cool.

"Pay attention boy! There's no time! Remember when you turned the rabbits into fish? Remember how we worked on the gills? You need to make yourself gills!"

Which is ridiculous, because gills don't work in air, but he knows the spell, and she's placed his wand in his hand, so he does as she says because it's too hard to argue when your mouth and throat feel like this.

"Good boy. Now hold on." With Al assisting she manoeuvres Scorpius onto his own broom, and kicks off the ground. "Potter secundus, I'll need your help," she says over her shoulder.

Al flies as close as he can, steadying his friend as needed. The Professor aims straight for the lake and lands in the shallow water. Oxygen floods back through Scorpius's veins.

Al is white and scared on the shore, dragging Scorpius's broom out from the wet, but McGonagall is there beside him "Are you all right, Scorpius?" she asks.

He nods, there's still no room in his throat for voice. But he smiles gratefully at her, and at Al.

Al runs in, too, and hugs him, and the professor, and starts to laugh with relief. "Thank you!" he kisses McGonagall's cheek.

She blushes, but is pleased. "I've been saving students from each other since before your parents were born," she demurs. "Ah, here's Susan."

Madame Bones is running towards them, wand at the ready and pack of potions slung across her back. She smiles when she sees Scorpius wave, then laughs when she sees the gills.

"We'll just have to fix you in stages," she says. "Unless you're planning to start a swimming team here, which may upset the giant squid."


	3. Chapter 3

XIII

In the remaining weeks of third year, Professor McGonagall secretly allows Scorpius to attempt some more transformations on himself.

He asks her about the need to register, noting she has not mentioned it.

"The whole registration process is about making sure you're safe while you're learning. And I don't see that we need to bother with that when I'm teaching you," she confides.

"Doesn't the Ministry want to keep a tab on Animagi?"

She sniffs, and then remembers how young he is. "The Ministry has genuine concerns, but to be honest, the people it needs to be worried about aren't going to register anyway. So it ends up being another level of control over the lives of ordinary people. Those are the same controls that were so badly abused during the War.

"Which isn't to say that you should keep such things secret - many is the young wizard or witch who's nearly come to a nasty end when they decided to transform into poultry."

Scorpius laughs at the idea of anyone willingly transforming themselves into a chicken. "Does everyone have just one form?" he asks.

"Transfiguring yourself into an animal is not an easy task," she reminds him. "The shape dictates how we see the world. Remembering to keep your mind human while your shape is not takes more energy and effort than you think. And you must be able to at least transfigure back without a wand. Remembering how to do that for more than one form takes too much energy and effort, better you remember to do it perfectly for the one."

Scorpius nods. "So how do you choose?" He has been thinking on the topic since she first raised it, and is no closer to a decision.

McGonagall leans back in her seat and waves her hand discursively. "Well, there are many factors," she begins. "I prefer a cat because they are intelligent and independent, and can move through a variety of situations with ease. But you might have a specific reason for wishing to become an Animagus. For example, if you want to be an Auror when you're an adult, something stealthy would be an advantage, such as a sparrow. Or perhaps you wish to experience the sensation of fast movement, in which case a racing animal, a hound or horse. Maybe there are certain animals that just appeal to you …"

Scorpius manages to stop his eyebrow from moving more than the slightest twitch, but it's too late. "And, Mr Malfoy, I warn you now that one goat joke will see an end to this class today."

He allows the smile that's threatening to tug his lips up ever so slightly. "Professor, the fact that I know George Weasley should not be held against me in this manner."

She lets out a bark of laughter at that. "Oh, there was a student with genius … if he and his brother had ever shown one iota of application to schoolwork …" Her voice trails off in tones of fondness with a trace of sorrow, but she soon refocuses. "The one rule I have is that you will not practice this alone until I tell you that you may. Any breaking of that rule will see an end to our classes, forever. Am I understood?"

Scorpius nods. But he has a question, "What about Sirius and Mr Potter's father?"

She is smiling again, though she tries to hide it with a stern look. "They were students of unusual talent and ability, but they were also very foolish and only safe by virtue of their good luck. And you'll note that they both chose larger mammals for their forms, which are somewhat easier. When they taught the trick to Mr Pettigrew, he had the advantage of their study, and then there also are some say that the transformation is best achieved choosing an animal that shares some characteristics of the wizard or witch. Do you have any ideas of where you'd like to start?"

"I do like cats, too, although dogs are good, maybe something like a wolfhound. I like ferrets, the way they're all slinky …"

McGonagall shakes her head slightly, "I'm not sure your father would approve."

"What about a bird? I like owls, a Snowy Owl would be good!"

"You spend a lot of time with the Potters, don't you?"

"A week or two every hols."

She purses her lips. "Maybe not a Snowy Owl, then, but a raptor is a good idea. How do you feel about eagles, or hobbies, kites or falcons?"

His face lights up. "Do you really think I could do a falcon?"

"Oh yes," her eyes look over him calculatingly. "It's a good fit, they're lean and hungry, but smart enough to know when not to pounce. They are good evaluators, they see very clearly, and they are much, much less mad than you'd expect." She clears her throat. "Compared to other raptors, that is. I think a peregrine would fit well with your passion for speed on the Quidditch pitch, Mr Malfoy. Shall we work to that?"

His eyes are shining with glee as he nods.

On his third lesson, he makes the transformation perfectly. He has never felt such a perfect fit with magic as he does in this; without a spell or a wand, he simply shifts between the states. And she is right, the falcon's mind is so very clear and precise. So much so that it hears things that Scorpius has missed.

For three years she has been dropping hints: "I was wrong to send them all away, they were right to come back"; "You have your father's humility"; "If only I could change things"; "I was wrong about your father".

And so when she looks at him fondly after his first flawless change, puts her head to one side, and says, "I am glad I had the chance to meet you," he takes a risk.

"When my father was here, did you like him?"

She is startled by the question, but she answers him honestly. "No, Malfoy, I did not. He was not a pleasant boy in his first years here, but I was hasty to judge and I never looked for reasons. I did not know what was happening in his home, how terribly misguided his parents were. They only realised at the end, and I am ashamed to say that I had written them, and him, off long before then."

Scorpius sits beside her, and presses gently for more information. "He used to tell me that things in the War did not happen exactly as the history books say, now he tells me that I should let the official versions stand, because it's still too raw to look at any other way."

McGonagall looks at him with interest. "I never said your father wasn't a smart man. He's right on both counts, more's the pity. It's my fault, too. If I had spoken up at the time, the truth would have come out. But it was so very much easier to leave things black and white, to not have to accept that easy sides are impossible, even at a crisis."

When she does not appear to be going on, Scorpius prompts her again. "Mr Potter says my father was there at the end, and that he was brave."

He is not expecting her to gasp. "Harry said that?" A small smile follows. "Well, it's true. It took Draco enough time to find his courage, but once he did, he was unwavering. I did him a grave injustice on that issue."

Scorpius smiles encouragingly at her. "I don't think he minds," he says. "He told me that everything was worthwhile for what he has now."

"Then he is an even better man than I have given him credit for," she concludes.

Scorpius is shaken by the seriousness of her expression, and so transfigures once more, landing lightly on her wrist before soaring into the sky to dive and wheel and bring a smile to her face with his grace.

When the holidays arrive, Scorpius stays with the Potters for a full five weeks so that he can help in the work for Mr Potter's fortieth birthday. The guest list expands and contracts several times, with dignitaries inviting themselves and Mr Potter disinviting them in quick succession.

In the chaos, Scorpius and Al manage to tramp over half the local countryside in search of new markers for their mental maps of the area. Lily tags along some days, mostly to escape her mother's firm belief that she should learn some housework and her grandmother's commitment to keeping her neat.

Mr Potter makes time every day to fly with the children, and is impressed with Scorpius's speed and accuracy. " Don't ever tell your father I said this, but you're at least as good as I ever was," he confides one evening.

Scorpius glows with pride, and Al grins widely at him. James snorts with disgust. "At least I'm …"

"… Better looking!" they all conclude for him.

Mr Potter ruffles his hair affectionately. "You've as much natural talent, James, but I just can't see you practicing as many hours."

Scorpius looks down and mutters.

Al nudges him and says, "Tell them, no, show them!"

And McGonagall did give permission on the last day of term, so he changes then, and flies above them, climbing far into the air, then screaming into a dive that has the Potters breathless, Scorpius's kreeing call sends every small bird from the garden or deep into shrubs. He wheels about above the ground and lofts gently back onto Al's outstretched wrist, where he lands gently and chuckles, before hopping off and resuming his own shape.

James, Lily and Mr Potter are impressed. "And so it's no wonder you're outflying me these days," James seizes on the, to him, logical extension.

"Does your dad know?" Mr Potter asks.

Scorpius nods. "But he hasn't seen it yet. I only learned it at the end of term."

"Good work." His own children are now clamouring to learn the spells required, and both Mr Potter and Scorpius are laughing. "If you receive O's in transfiguration, you may ask Professor McGonagall yourself," he tells them. And, "if you are nearly killed and have to make your own gills, then yes, you may also have advanced classes," he adds.

The Potter children are undivided in their assertion their father is no fun.

When the Granger-Weasleys arrive, the Potter house is transformed into an all-out riot. Lily, Rose and Al fight over who sits next to Scorpius at dinner, until Mr Weasley declares that he and Mrs Granger-Weasley will, which leads to several evenings in which conversation is ambling along merrily until Mr Weasley turns to look at Scorpius and starts in horror each time.

"Different Malfoy," Scorpius deadpans, much to Mrs Granger-Weasley's amusement. By the third time she has joined the chorus, and by the fifth, Mr Weasley and the rest of the table are also delivering the punchline.

George Weasley arrives the day before the celebrations and brings a selection of new party favours, which he promises are delightful, enjoyable and completely lacking in ghastly side-effects. When Lily tries one, she is adopted by a spectral rabbit that spends all day hopping after her, nibbling gently at her toes. Its soft fur can just be felt. Mrs Potter laughingly accepts that open-toed shoes will be an acceptable risk at the event, and looks forward to seeing the promised cats and birds of paradise.

The day of the party is a constant whirl of wizarding society. Mr Potter has given up on restricting guests and, after the night before's family and friends celebration, is cheerfully accepting that he is a hostage of publicity. Even the _Daily Prophet_'s reporter is allowed in for twenty-five minutes. Which becomes eighteen minutes when she begins to complain that Luna Lovegood has unrestricted access.

Professor Longbottom is there, too, and takes time out to sit with the children for a while. "It's too mad over with Harry," he admits to them. He is astonished to learn that Scorpius hates Potions, which has the others clamouring to provide the most outrageous stories of the lengths that Scorp will go to to avoid doing his Potions homework.

"He had Mari chained to it for months, then he managed to convince Al to do it in return for covering Al's Charms papers," Rose dobs him in cheerfully.

"But you're so good in Herbology!" Professor Longbottom pretends that he has never heard of such misbehaviour, a performance that would be more convincing had they not heard his hilarious tales of skiving the night before.

"Everyone's good at Herbology," Lily tells him. "Because you make it interesting and fun!"

Professor Longbottom ignores the compliment, but they can tell that he is pleased.

The speeches go on for over an hour. But the presents are good, and Mr Potter is genuinely happy to announce two new scholarships as part of the Potter Foundation, one devoted to postgraduate studies in cryptozoology, and named for Miss Lovegood.

Al has filled Scorpius in on the long childhood hunts for various members of the Snorkack family, so he is not surprised by Miss Lovegood's speech. He is surprised that Mr Potter wanders some little distance away from the party during it. When he looks up and sees Scorpius watching him, he waves him over.

"Escaping?" Scorpius asks.

"For a few minutes," he confesses. "Thanks for all your help this month, I think the kids would have killed each other if you hadn't been around."

"I think Mrs Weasley might have killed them first," Scorpius whispers, nodding at Al's scary grandmother.

Mr Potter laughs quietly. "I know Al calls her Deathgran," he shares.

Scorpius grins. "It's pretty cool," he says quietly.

They sit in companionable silence for a while, listening as Miss Lovegood details the huge expanses of Norwegian glacier as yet uninvestigated.

"Tell your dad happy birthday for last month," Mr Potter says quietly.

"Why don't you tell him when he picks me up tonight?"

Mr Potter looks at his shoes. "We're not very good at remembering the social niceties."

Scorpius makes his choice. "I know that he was horrible to you at school, but I also know that changed at some point. Everyone tells me that he just grew up to be different. He tells me that you trusted him once. You told me that he was with you at the Battle of Hogwarts, yet the history books say that he was a prisoner. No one tells me what really happened. Can you?"

Mr Potter shakes his head slightly. "I can't. I should have, I should have told everyone at the time, but I was angry over stupid things and I let everyone believe what they wanted to. And so I let old prejudices live and killed a new friendship. When your grandfather tried to set the record straight, I made no comment. I regret very little more than that."

Scorpius is trying to understand. "Is it too late to change?"

"I think so, yes." Mr Potter is silent for a while, then adds, "But I am very happy that you and Al are friends. All my children love you, and that's something that I never thought possible. So we'll see."

He ruffles Scorpius's hair, then wanders back to the party. Al reclaims his friend and demands assistance demolishing some of the hippogriff-shaped chocolate cake. By the time Scorpius's father arrives to claim him that evening, he is nearly asleep, stuffed with cake and worn-out with partying. There is just enough energy to wander down to the gate with Al, James and Mr Potter.

"Have you packed everything?" Mr Potter is asking Al.

"Yup, and I can borrow anything I forgot."

"Mr Malfoy."

"Mr Potter."

Scorpius's father reaches out and hugs him. "Did you have a good time?" he asks.

"Great! You should have seen the cake! I saved some for you and Mum."

Scorpius's father smiles broadly. "So long as the cake was good, then." He looks up at Mr Potter. "Forty, eh? Good grief."

Mr Potter grins. "At least we both still have our hair."

Al hugs his father goodbye, then walks through the gate to the Malfoys. "See you Monday," he tells his brother.

"What time does the party start?" James checks.

"One," Scorpius tells him. "And make sure Lily knows that I really don't want Puddlemere United pyjamas for my birthday."

"She knows, she's hoping you'll give them back to her."

"Oh, well in that case, sure."

Scorpius's father takes hold of his son's and Al's hands, and makes sure they have a tight grip on their bags before he Apparates. "Thank you for taking good care of him, Helene will meet you in Diagon Alley on Monday to pick up the others."

"Draco," Mr Potter's voice is slightly hesitant. "Happy birthday for last month."

"Happy birthday, Harry," Scorpius's father says evenly. And the slight tremor in his hand is easily explained by the side-along Apparition.

XIV

Scorpius is fourteen when the first revisionist history of the war is released. Irving Low's poorly written but hotly selling tome constructs Scorpius's grandfather as a hero of the wizarding cause who has been unfairly tarred by his association with Voldemort.

Lucius Malfoy, Low insists in his account, was nothing less than a pure-blooded hero who was prepared to make any sacrifice to protect the wizarding world from the intrusive brutality of Muggles.

Citing "reliable sources", Low repeats the hoary old tale of forty-thousand British witches and wizards killed by Muggles in the Burning Times and constructs an elegant, if absurd, scenario where most of the Death Eaters were in fact motivated by rising dangerous Fundamentalism in the Muggle population.

The first that Scorpius hears about this is when Lester Biggs drags him over to the Slytherin table at the end of breakfast. His seventh-year mates are all sitting at the one end, with a seat reserved for Scorpius.

"Is it true?" they ask him.

After a few minutes they accept that he has no idea what they are talking about, and so a brief explanation is offered. Scorpius is at first horrified, then astonished, and finally unable to speak due to howls of laughter.

"Well, he's your grandfather," Lester says, trying to calm him down. "We figured you'd know."

"The idea of my grandfather knowing _anything_ about Muggles, oh you have no idea ..." Scorpius starts laughing again. "If he was alive, this would kill him."

"I told you it was bollocks," Lester tells the other Slytherins.

"But he did want to keep the wizarding world hidden, yeah?" a seventh-year who Scorpius does not know asks.

"Well, sort of. He wanted to keep us secret because he thought that Muggles were pathetic … little more than animals. It was all about his own ego, really. The minute Voldemort showed his true colours, he wanted out of there."

"But I heard that he said we weren't safe from the Muggles and that they weren't safe from us, and that until we could work out ways not to harm each other, we'd be better off apart," the boy continues.

Scorpius shakes his head. "No, that was my Dad. He said that after the War. It wasn't very popular, but he was right. And that's what we've done. Besides," he turns back to Lester. "Those numbers are crap. Wendelin the Weird isn't entirely a fairy story for kids, you know. Proper analyses of witch trials in the UK put the upper number of the dead at one thousand, and of that it's only ever been established that three were genuine witches, two of whom were suicides, and there were no real wizards at all. It's Muggles killing Muggles again. They do that all the time. But we do it, too. Voldemort killed more than a thousand Muggles in the last War alone. And he killed more than a thousand of us. If we were serious about safety, we'd be isolating ourselves from everyone and everything."

"But that won't happen," Lester is quick on the uptake for all that he looks as though he was hewn rather than grown. "When we kill each other, it's Dark Wizards, or an unfortunate accident. It's never the fact that we're rubbish at promoting social harmony."

Scorpius realises that he has always quite liked Lester.

"That's all very well, but how can we harmonise with a society that would be appalled at the very idea of us?" Scorpius thinks the girl speaking is named Veronica.

Lester shrugs. "I don't even know how we work with each other when we've still got pureblood prejudices running rife among us. For all that it's not fashionable, you know your parents would be thrilled if you took me or Malfoy home, and horrified if it was Charles Derwent, wouldn't they Vivianne?"

That's her name, Scorpius thinks. Vivianne shrugs. "Perhaps. Alas, Malfoy's a wee babe, so I'll never be able to put it to the test."

Scorpius joins in the general laughter. He's impressed, though. This is good critical thinking.

"I've got a copy if you want to borrow it," Lester offers. "_A Reassessment of the War_, which is more accurately titled: Voldemort's dead, so let's blame it all on that fucker and get back to hating everyone."

"Nah," Scorpius laughs. "No, I've heard enough about the evils of Voldemort at home to last me the rest of my life."

He trots off to grab his books before class, promising to put in some practice down at the pitch with Lester on Thursday. He doesn't notice the younger set of Slytherins who have followed the conversation with interest.

Over the next two days, people are talking about _Reassessment_. Low has captured the imaginations of some, and the outrage of others. Scorpius refuses to touch the book, but Rose thinks it is only wise to know what's in it. She is halfway through one evening when she drops it to the floor and runs over to Scorpius on the other side of the common room.

"He talks about Uncle Harry!" she says, and that is all she needs to say. They run from Ravenclaw Tower together, and are soon at the portrait of the Fat Lady. Rose begins to knock, but Al keeps Scorpius up to date with the password for emergencies, and they bowl into the Gryffindor common room to find it in uproar.

James is ranting at the masses. "How _dare_ he? Lucius Malfoy was an arse and to say that he was more honest than my father …" The crowd has parted enough for him to spot Scorpius's pale blond hair.

"It's OK," Scorpius tells him. "He _was_ an arse."

James grins bashfully at him. "Sorry, mate. It's just …"

"Yeah, I know. Rose just got to that part, and we thought we ought to get over here and confiscate all your copies. Too late."

James is astonished. "I can't believe I beat Rose through a book."

"I only got my copy this afternoon!" She is affronted.

Scorpius can hear Al's laughter above the rest of the Gryffindors and quickly spots him towards the back of the common room, with Hugo and Lily. He turns back to James. "Just, don't do anything stupid, OK? It's an idiotic book written by someone who has no clue about anything, and anyone who believes it will be slowly and carefully argued out of their position by me or Rose. You banging their head against a wall will not help."

"I do not bang heads against walls!"

"No, you bang them against other heads, and that won't help either."

James is forced to admit that this is true, even if it's only happened the twice.

"So you're cool?"

"I am cool," James replies.

"Lily?" Rose knows better than to trust the redheaded Potter to stay calm, but for once she has been misjudged.

"Anyone who believes that tripe isn't worth my effort," she declares, glaring pointedly at her older brother.

"I don't believe it," he protests. "That's the whole point!"

"Yes, but you've been going on about it for twenty minutes and we were going to play Exploding Snap."

"Oh go snog somebody. No! That was a joke!" James leaves off talking to Scorpius and Rose as Lily leaps with glee from her chair and into the nearby lap of Piers Duke.

Scorpius and Rose wave goodbye to Al and Hugo, as Lily's loud arguments follow them to the hallway. "But I'm thirteen! His dad's a rock star! You were snogging everyone when you were thirteen!"

For two weeks they are so convinced that they have calmed the situation that they miss clues; the most obvious being Lester Biggs handing out detentions to four of the Slytherin third-year boys. Al tells him later that the boys in question had made Death Eater robes and worn them around the common room. Scorpius thinks it was meant as a joke, but Al is worried.

Al is right. That night as they leave a late dinner, James is accosted by two of the Slytherin third years. "Blood traitor!" they accuse him.

"Oh shut up you try-hard Voldeweenies," he laughs at them. He thinks he is letting them off.

Then there is a wand. Scorpius dives forward, reaching for his own. He hears Al and Lester both screaming his name. He hears something else, too, but isn't sure what it is, just a string of vowels and hard consonants. There is green light, and there is nothing.

A snap of consciousness. Someone is holding him and sobbing. Someone is nearby, snivelling. "I didn't mean it!" they are whimpering. They sound as though they are being shaken.

He is in a bed. Everything is so sore, so distant. His eyelids hurt to move, so he opens them just a slit. He can see his father, and Al is curled up asleep in his father's lap. He wants to smile at them, but it's too hard. His mother moves into view, her eyes are red from crying. She looks at him intently, then turns away. "I can't …" she sobs.

It must be another day, because Al is wearing different clothes, and Mr Potter is there with him now. His father is crying on Mr Potter's shoulder, while Al pats his pale hair. Scorpius wants to tell them it's all right, and he will, just after he sleeps a little longer.

Lester is there, now, and Al is dozing against him. "See, his eyes flickered again. Wake up, Al, see?" Lester leaves off trying to raise Albus and looks at Scorpius intently. "Come on, mate, time to wake up now. Enough slacking off."

Al is there alone, he is holding his hand. "Just get well. Just get well," he says, over and over again. Scorpius wishes he had the strength to squeeze back.

His father is wiping his face with a cool, damp cloth. He can smell herbs in the water, and thinks Professor Longbottom must have sent them; they have that fresh vibrancy that all his plants seem to possess. Some of the water runs down onto his neck. "Cold," he whispers, in a croaking voice.

His father gasps, and pulls him close against his chest and holds him as though he is a lifeline. He can feel his father shaking, and instead of words, there are sobs. In the background, he can hear Mr Potter calling for Madame Bones.

"Scoop," the nickname is whispered, but he hears it.

Madame Bones is there and his father is pushed away – Mr Potter takes hold of him and lets him cry against his shoulder again – and he is lowered back onto his pillow, his pulse taken, his eyes checked. When asked how he is feeling, he answers, "Thirsty," and is allowed a small sip of cool water. It is the best thing he has ever tasted.

He answers enough questions to assure Madame Bones that he is on the road to recovery. She pushes his hair back from his forehead and if her eyes are glistening, he's sure it's just a trick of the lamplight. "Good," she says. "You gave us all quite a fright. And I was worried that young Albus was going to starve to death if you didn't wake up soon."

At his name, Al steps forward, tentatively. "It's all right," Madame Bones assures him. "The danger is past, you can sit and chat for a little, then I want to see you sleep in a proper bed tonight."

Al takes Scorpius's hand gently. His lips are pressed together tightly.

"Sorry," Scorpius apologises.

"If you ever do anything that stupid again, I'll kill you," Al promises.

"Should have tackled the kid," Scorpius considers.

"And if you'd paid more attention to the minutiae of Muggle Studies, you'd have known about Rugby," Al starts to smile.

"Head in the clouds," Scorpius croaks.

"And full of air," Al concurs. He passes him a glass of water, and holds him up tenderly while he drinks it.

Scorpius's father is back. He smiles at Al, kisses Scorpius's forehead. "We were worried," he says. "Al wouldn't leave for anything but a shower and the lav. We couldn't even convince him to come for meals downstairs."

"I thought you might wake up while I was having dinner, and you'd fail to notice the extent of my devoted friendship," Al deadpans.

"Who are you, anyway?" Scorpius responds in kind. Then, serious, turns to his father. "Where's Mum?"

"She's coming, I just sent her a message. Harry's gone to meet her."

"You were here every day. I only saw her once."

His father's eyes ghost behind a film of water, which he blinks quickly away. "It was hard for her. You were so still. It was very hard …"

"I knew you could see us," Al is saying. "Lester thought so, too. You kept opening your eyes a little bit. He wanted to bring photos of the bruising he gave Terrance Byford before Goshawk expelled him, but I wasn't sure you'd want to see them."

"Expelled?" Scorpius is shocked. "It was an accident."

Al is quiet, and it's up to his father to speak. "He used an Unforgiveable on you, son. We're just lucky he was only a stupid, vicious little boy. Very, very lucky."

There are quick footsteps coming. "Over here, Mrs Malfoy," says Albus's dad.

And there is his Mum, and she is holding him and kissing him and crying and begging that he forgive her. "It's all right, I'm all right," he says many times.

"Thank you, Mr Potter," he hears in the distance. And he can't quite work out why that sentence sounds wrong.

"You are welcome, Mr Malfoy."

He reaches out to touch the wall at the head of his bed. He hears the sigh of happiness through all of his bones.

The next morning he's well enough for guests. Lily and Hugo come armed with sweets and are filled with gossip from the fortnight he has missed. Rose kisses him squarely on the mouth and tells him that she, too, will kill him if he ever does anything so stupid again. James hugs him and bursts into tears. Lester tells him that the fourth-year Slytherins have all made duplicate copies of their notes for the work he's missed, plus plan to take him out to dinner in Hogsmeade to make up for the idiocy of their housemates. He adds that the remaining three said idiots have been re-educated and would like to apologise in person.

Albus gets out of his proper bed, which is the next one along in the infirmary, and joins the impromptu party. After a while, Madam Bones joins in, too.


	4. Chapter 4

XV

In the aftermath of the attack, Irving Low's tome is banned from Hogwarts. When Scorpius is found reading it a month later in the library, his father is summoned to the Headmistress's office.

Scorpius does his best to look embarrassed when his father arrives. He is ignored for a moment, as his father shakes the Headmistress's hand.

"Professor Goshawk," he greets her. "I have been informed of the reason for my summons …"

She is apologetic, "If ever I was to make an exception, I would make one for Scorpius. But I have banned even my teachers from possessing copies of this book. While I understand his curiosity after he suffered so, I cannot countenance disobedience of a direct order. Yet I do not feel it is fitting to punish the boy, either. Would you have a word with him? I think that would be for the best."

Scorpius's father picks up the book in question. He flicks through the first pages, stopping briefly to examine the binding. He puts it back on the Headmistress's desk and regards Scorpius calmly. "When I said that things did not happen the way the history books have it, this -" he taps the cover dismissively - "is not what I meant."

"I know that," Scorpius keeps his voice cool, though he is nervous. "It's rubbish, that's obvious, but how are we meant to argue against lies if we don't know what they are?"

The Headmistress draws a deep breath. "I agree with you from an intellectual standpoint, Scorpius, but," she raises a finger, "Not every student is you. For all that you are able to spot the lies in this text, others are not so discerning."

"Oh, there are truths, too," Scorpius tells her, quietly. He goes on, before she has a chance to marshal a reply, "Not about Voldemort and his Death Eaters, at least, not in any important ways. My grandfather may have regretted his allegiance, but that was only because his association with the Dark Lord threatened his family. He was quite happy to risk other families up to that point.

"No, where it tells the truth is in saying that we're lied to about who fought back. Because when you read the official accounts and you stack them up one against the other, something strange emerges. They're all taken from just five eyewitness accounts. One of them is reliable; Neville Longbottom tells his story just as it occurred, everyone else agrees with him, and the other people I've spoken with who were there on the day say it is as they remember it, too. But Professor Longbottom was in the thick of the fighting and his view is limited.

"One of them was a child, Ginny Weasley, and her account is faithful and accurate so far as it concerns her family and Mr Potter, but it omits several events and people that I am reliably told she witnessed. One other witness was an egoist, and Professor Horace Slughorn's account was mainly directed at making himself appear heroic. Which is not to say that he did not play a key role, just that he ignores any others. Arthur Weasley's account is very accurate, but again, limited and hopelessly distracted by the death of his son. And the final witness, Professor McGonagall, lied."

"Mr Malfoy!" The headmistress is outraged, and even his father is looking at Scorpius with a frown.

He goes on. "She told me. She will tell you, too, if you ask her. She's not proud of it, but she was so angry at the time, and it seemed such a minor lie. It's what she intended to happen, so why not just pretend that it did? And later, everything moved so quickly into established fact. There was no time for corrections. But the story that she told me is the same story that Mr Potter told me, and I think," he looks at his father, "I think it is the same story my father would tell me if he ever spoke about that night."

His father shakes his head. "The Official History is so comforting, so simple. After a war, people crave simple. A simple truth, and simple lives. Let it go, Scorpius. I crave simplicity, too."

The headmistress is looking between them, and she is a smart woman and she has heard the stories. Her conscience is not easy. "Surely truth matters, too," she says.

"People have the truth they want," Scorpius's father answers. "We have spent over twenty years building on that truth. The few of us who were harmed by it will not see all that work swept aside for the sake of our egos."

"I'm sorry," Scorpius beats the headmistress to the phrase. "I didn't realise."

His father kisses his brow swiftly. "Not your fault, I never told you. And you assure me you're not psychic."

As they grin at each other, Professor Goshawk realises exactly where Scorpius comes from. She is impressed. She has heard tales of Mr Malfoy as a student, and can only imagine his work to become this man.

"You have a remarkable boy," she tells the senior Malfoy. "And you have a remarkable father," she adds to the younger. "I am keeping the book, though. If you wish to read it, you may do so in my office. I may read a chapter or two myself if you have any recommendations. Now please escort your father out, Scorpius. I suggest you take a tour of the grounds, it is a beautiful day and you may have the afternoon off class."

"I like your headmistress," Scorpius's father tells him as they exit her office. "Strict but fair, and with kinky boots."

"You've had enough sun already, from the sounds of it," Scorpius sighs dramatically.

His father laughs, then plays his hunch. "I'd like the piece of parchment in your pocket, please."

Scorpius looks at him for a long moment, then passes it over. "I'm trusting you," he says.

It is cheap parchment, the sort used by low-cost printers. It is torn down one side and blank, save for an inscription on the top right-hand corner: Rose Granger-Weasley, Ravenclaw. Mr Malfoy raises one eyebrow at his son.

"She wasn't foolish enough to get caught with it. I owe her three galleons," he says.

His father takes a handful of gold from his pocket and passes it to him. "Treat her to a meal in Hogsmeade with my compliments," he replies.

When Scorpius returns to the common room before dinner, everyone quiets down at his appearance. Rose nervously asks if he is all right. He assures her that he is.

"We were worried, you weren't in class."

"The Headmistress said I could spend some time with my father."

He can't place the muttered reply from one of his housemates, but he hears the words clearly enough: "The Death Eater."

"We were planning a charitable institution to train Squib children, and the mentally fragile," he continues in a louder voice. "And possibly a rescue home for kittens."

"Really?" Maisie Carrington looks up, "I love kittens!"

"Yes," Scorpius snaps, walking towards his dormitory. "As do I. Although the tiny little bones can prove tricky."

XVI

Sometimes the castle laughs at Scorpius. He is never wholly sure why.

_You are so young, I forget_, it tells him. _You know so much and so little at the same time_.

"What are you talking about?" Scorpius is too amused to be offended.

The castle shows him in Al's Room of Requirement, swooping through the arches on his broom. Al is watching him with the intent and happy look he always seems to wear.

"Well." Scorpius tosses his hair in faux dudgeon. "If flying is considered youthful and foolish, I'd rather be a child." And he bursts into laughter, too. If anything, the castle laughs harder.

He goes downstairs. Lester is in the Ravenclaw common room again, ostensibly conferring with Mari on Head Boy/Head Girl business, but the whole house has known about their relationship from its inception a few months before. As he has been doing for months now, he makes a point of checking on Scorpius, too.

"I hear Mari wants you to take over as captain next year," he says. "It's a good choice, you have a good tactical brain."

"Yeah," Scorpius shrugs. "But I think that Laura Wadcock would be better. And her aunt might not cope if she leaves school without being captain."

Lester laughs. "Damn Quidditch families. It's the same in Gryffindor, James Potter is convinced he'll be disowned if he doesn't get the job."

"Al would do a better job," Scorpius thinks out loud.

"Yes, he would," Lester agrees. "But I think he'll follow your lead, as usual."

"He doesn't follow me, I follow him," Scorpius doesn't even think these words before he says them.

Lester looks at him, understanding. "I know you do, mate. Anyway, I won't see you much over the next few weeks, so I wanted to ask you about catching up over the holidays. I'm taking a year off, but I don't head for Spain until September, so you're more than welcome to come and stay with us, or I could pop by and see you one day."

Scorpius grins. "That'd be great. You should come and stay with us, Dad thinks the world of you, and Al's usually over for at least a week, so you can see both of us.

"That'd be good. I like your dad." Scorpius's father has stayed in touch with Lester through the course of the year, and has lined up several appointments for him when he returns from his gap year. He jokes about it being the only way he can do anything for Slytherin these days.

"And maybe you can all come and see me in Spain next year?"

"Yeah, that'd be good, too." Scorpius looks at him for a moment. "It's going to be weird," he concludes. "Not having you here. It's as though you keep a steadying hand on the school."

"That's because you are all tiny little munchkins in the face of my physical mightiness." Lester grins, looking down on Scorpius from his full six-foot-four.

"That and the fact that you have a mind like an Italian politician; Renaissance version, not the current lot."

Lester breathes an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Thank Merlin, I'd have had to top _myself_ if you'd been suggesting I reminded you of the Ministero di Magia. Did they ever find their accountants?"

"No." Scorpius shakes his head sadly. "But I heard from Al's uncle that Gringotts were happy to provide some new identities in turn for being given the account."

"Sometimes I think we need a European Union as much as the Muggles ..."

They sit laughing for a short while, aware that this part of their friendship is near its end.

"Lester," Scorpius says, "Thanks. I know you hosed down a lot of crap for me this year."

"Eh," Lester shrugs. "I was more than happy to pummel Byford." They both know this is not exactly what Scorpius means. Lester looks at Scorpius seriously. "I'm counting on you, now. You can keep them all together once I leave. It can't go back to the way it was before the War, no matter how much bullshitting politicians indulge in. This has to be a place of learning and safety. Too many students died so that it would be."

There is a long pause. Lester is looking at Scorpius with great seriousness. Scorpius frowns. "I'm not you," he says, not sure Lester's talking to the right person.

"Malfoy, you muppet, you are, and this pains me, slightly smarter than I am. I admit that you are but a wee pasty creature, but Al hangs out with you all the time and he's handsome enough for the two of you. And I can't think of anyone in the school who doesn't like at least one of you. If you ask him, he'll help. Between the two of you, I'm sure you can manage as much as I did."

"Wanker." Scorpius grins at him. "But yeah, OK. We'll keep it up. I'm not sure you could have found anyone more inflammatory than a Potter and a Malfoy, though."

Lester winks merrily. "I know. That's why it's bound to work. People have too fine a sense of irony to tell the two of you about the War and its fallout."

"I fear for our world if you are ever in a position of power."

"Cheers, mate. Must dash, important Head Boy/Head Girl business ..." and the wink he gives before regaining Mari's attention is positively filthy.

Lester and the other seventh years are well into their NEWTs when Scorpius receives an Owl from his father a few weeks later. Which is frustrating, because Scorpius really wants someone older to tell him that his suspicions are all misplaced.

"I'm sorry, son, but we need you to come home alone for the first fortnight. There are family matters to discuss," it says, among pages of news regarding the gardens, Ministry changes and general chatter.

He asks the castle what it could mean. It attempts to cheer him up. _The Manor has been made over into a research library and you are all moving to the Cotswolds?_ it suggests. _Your father has taken to dyeing his hair blue in a bid to stay in touch with the younger generation?_

Scorpius thanks it for its efforts, he knows it means well. The Castle distracts him with a quick tour around the school. _Look, there's Goshawk looming over first years. Did you know that Professor Flitwick had a long dalliance with an Italian soprano? On the topic of dalliances, the reason Professor Longbottom has stayed at school for the least three weekends is not that he is overseeing a complex experiment, but rather that two of his girlfriends found out about each other and he is letting things calm down before he talks to them._

"How many girlfriends does Professor Longbottom have?" Scorpius asks, intrigued despite himself.

_I've only heard of nine. Here's the second year choir, they sound good, don't they._

"Yeah, they do. What's Al up to?"

_He's with his brother and sister, they're talking about something in the Gryffindor common room. Would you like to see?_

"That's fine, I'll talk to him later. The choir's nice." Scorpius drifts off to sleep listening to the music, and doesn't wake till his dorm mates tramp in hours later.

The next morning he breaks the bad news to Al. "It's just for the first two weeks, I can come to your place later, and that will mean you'll probably be at mine in the week Lester can make it, so he can Apparate us places, which will be great."

Al seems a little distracted. "That'll be good, yeah," he agrees. "Hope everything's OK."

Scorpius shrugs. "They're probably turning the Manor into a research library."

The remaining weeks of school rush by. On the last Hogsmeade weekend, Lester and Mari, free from exams join Scorpius and the Potter/Weasley contingent at the Three Broomsticks, in the lunch gathering that has become tradition among them since James invited everyone else along to Scorpius's lunch with Rose, reasoning they would need chaperones.

As always, James sits with Rose and she calls him a man-trollop. "If only there was a better word ..." she ponders.

"Mollop?" Mari suggests.

Lester offers "Chumpet."

"Town blike," suggests Lily, which elicits an "Oi!" and the raised finger of none of that language from you, young lady from her oldest brother.

"It _is_ your fault, James," Lester consoles him. "I think Rose is the only looker at school that you've not gone out with. Which just goes to show you're mad, she's much lovelier than your usual bimbos."

Scorpius notes that Rose blushes to the tips of her ears at that comment.

"Don't be stupid, she's my cousin!" And with James's scoffing comment, Rose's blush disappears.

"You're the idiot," Lily interjects. "There's no law against going out with your cousins. Besides, none of our grandparents are closely related, so if we wanted to Hugo and I could get married and we'd produce beautiful, brilliant children and if the eldest ones ever picked on the littler ones, we'd lock them in a cupboard."

"You may not marry Hugo!" James says.

"Never did Dad much harm," Al says at the same time.

Rose waits for them to finish talking over each other before opining: "I would be aunt to the most irritating children the world has ever known. Don't expect babysitting."

"Anyway," James says in a lordly fashion. "It'll be _Scorp_ and Rose, wait and see. You can't keep two megabrains like them apart for long."

Rose turns on James in a fury. Scorpius groans and drops his face into his hands. Al laughs and pats him on the back. Lester can be heard even above Rose's high-pitched declarations of James's stupidity. "That would be a genuine surprise ..."

At the end of term, his father meets him alone at the station. Scorpius looks about for his mother, but if he's being honest, he knows that this was inevitable. He stays quiet until they arrive home, then, as his Dad stands at the front door, trying to speak but only opening and closing his mouth, Scorpius puts his arms around him. "I know she's gone," he says. "Are you all right?"

His father holds him for several minutes. Then he steps back and looks at him. "It is entirely my fault," he says. "She wanted someone who was there for her every day. I was so caught up with work and politics that I forgot to be a husband."

"When I was sick ..." Scorpius has a sinking feeling about the timing.

"No." His father stops him. "We were broken long before then. She told me that it was the week she spent in France over Easter that made her realise she wasn't missing me. She loves you, and I love you, and she and I just don't love each other any more."

Scorpius pats his father's hand. "It's OK. Let's go inside. Sit down, have some food. It'll be OK. You two will work something out."

"Scorpius, we're getting a divorce."

A second passes. "Yeah, obviously. But you'll need to work something out about me."

His father laughs and throws an arm around his shoulders as he opens the door. "Of course. Actually, I have told Helene that she can stay here, the Manor's big enough for us to only see each other when we want to. You may have to start having two Sunday breakfasts every week, but that shouldn't be an issue for you since you only drink coffee and eat pain au chocolat."

"Well, if it means extra pastries, I'm not so upset ..."

In his mother's sitting room there is a letter addressed to him. His father leaves him alone to read it. She tells him she loves him. She tells him she has gone to her mother in Cap Ferrat. She tells him she still admires his father deeply as a person and that it is all her fault their relationship no longer works. She apologises to him for her many failings as a mother, and tells him she loves him again.

Scorpius sits and writes to her straight away. "You have never failed me. I love you." He signs his name, folds the parchment twice and calls for a house-elf to Owl the letter.

For the next week he amuses his father. They fly, and visit the cinema dressed in their most Muggle-ish outfits, which leads to some entertaining moments when three women and two men ask for his father's phone number. Then, on Saturday, his mother 'visits', and they all sit down to talk.

It is all so civilised.

She will take the apartment in London and live there during the school year, then occupy the west wing of the Manor during holidays. They will attend functions together when needed, and he will provide her with a settlement in addition to a monthly sum for expenses. If the arrangement changes Scorpius will be involved in any decisions that concern his future.

Of course he should tell his friends, and there will be a discreet announcement in the _Prophet_, but they will act as all old families do and present a united face despite the divorce. Helene returns to France that night, but she will be back in a fortnight for Albus and Lester's visits.

Somehow, seeing them together acting so calmly as they rearrange his family makes it all so much worse.

Scorpius Owls Albus to tell him. He writes eight drafts. In the end, the letter simply says: "My parents split up. I miss you."

The next morning he receives a reply: "So did mine. I miss you, too."

It is a week before his father Apparates him to the Potter home. As usual, he stops at the gate and hugs him goodbye. "We'll see you both next week," his father says. "I'll bring in a stash of Honeydukes and 3W treats for Al, that will cheer him up a bit. And don't forget that we're all off to the theatre with Lester, so have Al bring something a little formal."

Al runs down the front path in time to wave goodbye to Scorpius's dad before he Disapparates. Mr Potter is a little behind him. Scorpius hears him mutter "Damn" when he realises Scorpius is alone.

Mr Potter looks at him and sees the quizzical look on his face. " I was going to ask your father inside," he explains. "It occurs to me he's never stepped inside the gate."

"You've never been to our house at all," Scorpius points out.

A wry smile flits across Mr Potter's face. "Actually, I have," he says. "But not for years."

Al drags Scorpius away before he can ask questions. They each fill in the details of their families' cracks. Mrs Potter has also gone to her mother's, but is due back the next day. She is talking about buying the house next door. Mr Potter is insisting he will move instead, and this, and this alone, has led to a screaming fight between them. Al agrees that the calmness is the worst. Any other emotion could have been cause for hope.

Lily and James return from the Burrow by Floo before dinner. Lily throws herself at Scorpius. "It's all so horrible!" she wails. He comforts her until she moves her hands too low and he leaps away with a tiny shriek.

"Lil! No using family tragedy as an excuse to grope," James rolls his eyes at her. When she pulls an appalling face at him, he breaks and starts to laugh. "All right then, no using it as an excuse on our friends. You can milk it for all it's worth once you're back at school."

James shakes Scorpius's hand and tells him he's sorry about his parents. Scorpius returns the sentiment.

"Post-traumatic stress," James pronounces. "They've all waited twenty-three years to go mad. What can I say? They're tough."

"Feeble humour will get us through this," Scorpius commends him.

"I have a limitless supply." James grins back.

"We know ..." the others chorus.

Late that night, when the rest of the Potters have gone to bed, Scorpius and Al stay up in the sitting room, talking about school.

"It's really just a matter of communication," Al says, leaning back on the cushions they have piled against the sofa. "So long as we're all talking to each other, none of the Houses can drift too far into the realms of paranoia or bigotry."

"We could convince James, Lily and Hugo to date more broadly," Scorpius suggests wickedly.

Al groans. "My brother is a bad influence. Encouraging him is bad. He is a bad person."

Scorpius laughs at him, and Al laughs, too. Then his voice catches, and his laughter becomes a sob. Scorpius puts his arms around his friend and holds him. Al cries for a long time and Scorpius holds him gently, until they are both too tired to stay awake.

Of course it is James who notices that the light is still on and comes to investigate. His bark of laughter wakes them both. Scorpius has a moment to realise that Al's head is on his chest and Al's arms are around him before Al realises where he is and sits up quickly

"Sod it, Al," James rolls his eyes. "I swear you couldn't be any gayer if you tried. Let Scorp go and get some sleep, you can go back to being sensitive in the morning."

Scorpius is alarmed to see Al's hands ball into fists and his face flush deep red, but his friend simply storms past his brother without looking back.

"He's upset about your mum, and he can't tell any of you," Scorpius defends him.

James looks guilty. "I know. It's just ... he needs to be stronger. He's so tough on the outside and he's a little kid on the inside."

"He is strong, he's just different."

"Yeah, well ... I'll tell him I'm sorry in the morning. Get some sleep."

The next day Al is bright and cheerful.

He stays that way for the entire holidays.

After Lester and Scorpius drop him home at the end of his visit to Malfoy Manor, Lester turns to Scorpius. "What the hell happened between the two of you?" he asks.

Scorpius looks at him with eyes full of worry. "I wish I knew."


	5. Chapter 5

XVII

Narcissa Malfoy is waiting for Scorpius when Lester drops him home. "Both my fine boys, back again safe." She takes their arms and leads them inside, declaring that Lester should take tea before he heads off. "Your parents would be horrified if I let you Apparate all over the country without even a spot of cake to take the edge off," she says.

As she cuts a slice of torte for each of the boys, she murmurs that she has finally remembered what she has been meaning to tell Lester all week. "The amusing thing about Italy's Ministero is its historic links to the Vatican. For example, did you know that their Head of Magical Law Enforcement is il Papa's third cousin? Isn't that charming? And it must be very comforting for them to be able to chat when they've both had such terrible times with fraud lately ..."

Lester grins broadly and gets to his feet. "Wonderful cake, thank you so much for having me, please give my regards to Mr Malfoy. I'll write, Scorp. You sort things out with Al, yeah? Cheers, Narcissa, you're the best."

After he has left, Scorpius shakes his head at his grandmother. "You're a meddler," he tells her.

"If I hear information that may be useful to a young man's career, who am I to hold it back?" she asks. She reaches over and takes his hand. "I have learned my lessons, you know. I use my powers for good these days. Besides, Lester is your friend, and I want your friends to have success."

"I know." He kisses her cheek. "And I appreciate it." He stands to leave, she catches his hand and pulls him to sit beside her.

"Albus," she says, and he cannot look away from her serious eyes. "Don't let him withdraw too far."

"I won't," he promises.

"Good boy." She kisses his cheek back. "Now go and play, I'm an old lady, I need my rest."

Scorpius doesn't see Al again until the first day of September, although they exchange Owls daily. Their letters focus on school, and ignore the fact that Al's parents' break-up has been front page of the _Prophet_ seven times in the last few weeks.

Mr and Mrs Potter are both at the station to see the children off to school. Mrs Potter smiles pleasantly for three photographs, then pulls out her wand and, in a charming voice, tells the press to leave now or else see exactly how far her connections in the Ministry can save her from prosecution.

Mr Potter is laughing with sincere admiration, and Mrs Potter smiles ruefully at him. "It's almost worth getting back together at this rate, if I didn't know I'd kill you within the year."

Scorpius sees the millisecond of stillness on her face as she spots his family, but it's followed by a resigned smile. "Hello Malfoys. Come and join us, we can all be scandalous together. Scorp, I swear you get paler every year."

Scorpius's mother kisses the Potters, and passes on good wishes from her friend Gabrielle to them both. "She was meaning to see you while she was here, but Victoire was insistent they leave for Paris immediately, apparently her young man has a new job and her mother would not let her take a hotel room near him without a chaperone, which is absurdly hopeful on her part, but there you have it."

Mr Potter and Scorpius's father exchange wry smiles above their former partners' heads, Lily pinches Scorpius on the arse, James tells her she is appalling, and Al grins a hello. Things are very nearly normal.

As prefects, Scorpius, Albus and Rose spend the first part of the journey in the front carriage with James, Laura and the other senior prefects. The two new Slytherin prefects are both from their Quidditch team, Aconitum Jigger and Oonagh Quigley. Al sits with them and starts chatting about inter-House liaisons.

"Because we spot the bullying that happens in our own House, but we tend to miss it when it's between Houses, and I know that some of your juniors have felt that Gryffindors are just out to get them, and I'm more than happy to hand out detentions ..."

Acon and Oonagh look to Scorpius in a mute plea for rescue, but he is in the middle of a similar spiel to the two fifth-year Hufflepuff prefects. By the time the train arrives at Hogsmeade, plans have been laid and the sixth and seventh year prefects are in full support.

It takes the teaching staff several weeks to notice that they have fewer detentions to monitor, and when they do they are not wholly sure of the cause. At one of their weekly meetings Professor Goshawk congratulates Merewyn Rufford and Wilfred Thomas on their excellent leadership, and tells all the prefects they are doing a good job of maintaining order.

After she leaves, Merewyn turns to Albus and thanks him for his brilliant plan. "It wasn't me," Al demurs. "It was Lester Biggs. He was the one who came up with the idea."

Scorpius grins. It's a genius manoeuvre: the Hufflepuffs are already on board because it's a good and sensible plan; the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors feel they have to support him and Al; now any possible Slytherin opposition is doomed. And so typically Al to shrug off praise, Scorpius knows he could not have done the same so easily. But then that's Al, and he feels a wave of admiration for his friend.

"Look at you, all aglow," Rose nudges him with her elbow. "Thinking of Maisie Carrington? Or just happy to be back at school?"

"Maisie Carrington?" Scorpius is horrified at the prospect.

"Lovely girl!" James chimes in from the other side of the Prefect's room. "Good kisser -ooohhf ..." His breath is knocked from his lungs by Laura Wadcock's elbow.

"I am banning him from Ravenclaw girls," she announces. "He's soiled goods."

"You love it," James manages to gasp.

"We'll take him," Oonagh drawls. "A few obliviating spells and he could be our own pretty little slave with no psychiatric scarring."

"Oi, oppressive!" James looks with horror at the various calculating female faces in the room, and notes the singular lack of support from the other boys. "I've got Quidditch practice!" he stalks from the room, pursued by a wave of laughter that only just waits until he's out the door.

The rest of the meeting breaks up properly, and Rose joins Scorpius and Al as they wander off to the courtyards. She takes their arms, and Scorpius realises that Al no longer does this, even when he is filled with urgent glee. " I heard that Professor McGonagall had you help with her advanced second years," Rose says to him. "That is so impressive, she barely lets the seventh years help."

"She's always been very kind to me, I think she feels some sort of debt, which I've told her is silly, but she won't listen."

Rose nods sagely. "From that time you found her when she was sick, yeah?"

"Um ..." Scorpius changes the subject: "Have you done your Muggle Studies homework?"

Rose blushes. "I was going to, but James wanted help with his Arithmancy ..."

"You can copy mine if you like," Scorpius allows graciously. "Here you go." He takes the scroll from inside his robes and hands it over to her.

"You're an angel!" Rose kisses his cheek and runs off to Ravenclaw Tower.

"She is always kissing you," Albus grouses.

"It's because I'm adorable," Scorpius grins at him.

"You're exasperating!" Al shakes his head and looks down.

Scorpius is worried. "Al?" He reaches across and takes his friend's hand. "Al, are we good?"

Al squeezes his hand, then drops it and looks up with a broad grin. "Yeah, course we are. You're my best friend. I'm just a bit ... you know ..."

Scorpius nods, relieved. "Yeah, it's a bit of a crap year all round, really. Feel like flying?"

"Race you to the field. And no transfiguring!" Al shouts the last word over his shoulder, having already set off at a sprint for the Quidditch pitch.

That night, Maisie Carrington sits next to Scorpius in the Ravenclaw common room and asks him for a particular favour.

Slightly concerned, Scorpius promises that he will see what he can do, but she needs to tell him what it is first.

"You know the Potter boys really well, don't you?" she asks.

Scorpius is relieved. "Yeah, but Maisie, James is just a flirt, you're going to have to move on."

"Oh I have!" she says eagerly. "I was hoping you could help me find some time with Albus, or put in a good word for me. He's _much_ better looking!"

Scorpius is frowning before he can stop himself. He's not sure why he wants to tell her no, and he forces himself to nod and promise that he'll try. She skips away, beaming. He excuses himself and goes to bed early.

As he tells the castle about his day, the castle plays it back to him in glimpses, a game they have shared for years now. And Scorpius has a chance to see his own face for a few moments.

_What is it?_ the castle asks as Scorpius grows silent.

"I have a very bad feeling that I'm an idiot ..." Scorpius tells it, but refuses to elaborate.

The Grey Lady drifts by at that moment. Impetuously, Scorpius calls out to her. "Miss Ravenclaw!"

She stops and looks at him curiously. "How do you know my name? Did that other boy tell you?"

Scorpius isn't sure who the other boy is, but he knows her story well. "I wanted to ask you something if I may?"

She nods graciously, so Scorpius continues. "How do you know when you're in love?"

And for the first time he hears her laugh, it is high and soft, like glass chimes. "You know because your heart is washed with feeling when you think of that person, because when they are beside you, they are the only thing that matters, because when you walk into a room, you always know where they are, because when you are filled with joy, you want to tell them first, and when you are filled with sorrow, you want them to comfort you."

She floats closer to him and looks serious. "But beware, little one. Love is not kind. Better choose to be alone and alive." And with that she is on her way again.

"Bugger," Scorpius whispers to himself. "Oh, no, not bugger ... oh fuck ... oh Merlin, that's worse ..." He covers his face with his hands and wills himself to fall asleep.

When Ryan Timms comes into the dorm an hour later, Scorpius is up to three thousand, one hundred and twelve sheep.

For the next two weeks, Scorpius is extremely suave and subtle, so much so that he is genuinely shocked when Al asks him what the hell is up over breakfast.

"You jump at everything, you're avoiding meeting up with me and James at practices and you've got a bit of a twitch under one eye. You've got a new Quidditch move up your sleeve, haven't you? And you're not sharing!" Albus punctuates his words with playful pinches of Scorpius's arm and chest.

Aware that at any moment he might actually implode, Scorpius says: "Maisie Carrington likes you. She wanted me to put in a good word. Aside from her awful taste in boys, she's pretty and funny."

Al frowns and looks across to the Ravenclaw table. Maisie spots him and waves. He smiles pleasantly at her, but shakes his head. "Friends, yeah?" he mouths.

She shrugs off the disappointment. "Sure," she mouths back, then returns to chatting with her girlfriends, only a mite less animatedly than before.

Scorpius puts his head to one side and regards his friend. "Not your type?" he asks.

"Not at all!" Al answers, laughing.

Two of the Gryffindor first years are looking at them intently. Scorpius thinks that the girl's name is Irene, and the boy's could be Nathaniel. Perhaps-Irene says: "Excuse me?"

"Yes?" Scorpius replies, half-relieved at the interruption.

"Are you Scorpius Malfoy?"

"Yes," he answers, noting that Albus shifts himself so that he is interposed between him and the children, in case he needs to shout at them. Scorpius's pulse is thrumming, he was unaware it could do that.

"That is so cool!" says the girl. "I told you, Ezekiel, he looks just like his dad!"

Ezekiel (not Nathaniel) grins and hands over a _Daily Prophet_. "Could you sign it for us?" he asks.

Al relaxes, and looks at the paper intently with Scorpius. Sure enough, there on the cover is the older Malfoy, newly appointed Head of the Department of Mysteries. As though on cue, Scorpius's own owl flies in at that moment and drops off another copy of the paper and a letter from his father. Laughing, Scorpius signs one _Prophet_ for Ezekiel and another for the girl who turns out to be named Iris.

"That's brilliant," Albus congratulates him. "Dad said your dad should have been head of his department ages ago. He was so embarrassed when he got Law first."

"Al ..." Scorp laughs.

"Yeah, yeah, 'your dad's Harry Potter'. Cheers, got that. Got the matching hair and eyes, too. Luckily mine work. Still," Al glances at the letter from Scorpius's father, "is he happy?"

Scorpius looks down and then holds the letter so they can both read it. "Yeah, yeah he is." Al hugs him, and the morning is pretty much perfect at that point.

On the way to classes Maisie Carrington rolls her eyes at him. "Seriously, that was the best you could do? It's not as if he's getting anywhere with any of the Gryffindor girls."

"I'm sorry," Scorpius apologises. "I did tell him I thought you were pretty and funny, and he agreed, he just said you weren't his type."

Maisie is a little mollified. "Well, so long as you acknowledge my prettiness," she says in friendlier tone. Then she grins broadly. "Don't suppose I'm your type?"

"No, sorry." Scorpius smiles at her with good will and absolutely no invitation. She smiles back, and goes into Charms ahead of him.

Rose is giggling softly beside him. "Just who is your type, Scorp?"

"Smart, brave, gorgeous, the usual," he says, grinning.

She slaps his bottom playfully as she passes him. "Silly, you should have said! I'm sure we can come to some arrangement ..."

It takes him a moment, and then he takes refuge in the bad example that James Potter has been setting him for years: "Yeah, a. very funny, and b. _oppressive_!"

XVIII

Albus is already at their desk in Potions when Scorpius arrives. He is looking at Professor Oakeshott with horror. "What'd I miss?" Scorpius whispers as their remaining classmates filter in behind him.

Al points at the board, where a long list of healing potions has been written. "He wants us to make all of those in the next ninety minutes. All of them!"

Scorpius sighs, and flips open his and Al's textbooks. "OK, let's take a look at all these and come up with a sensible division of labour ..."

Professor Oakeshott is running the late arrivals through the afternoon's task when Scorpius starts flicking pages backwards and forwards. A grin spreads across his face. He pulls out his quill and a scroll of parchment and starts taking notes. "Write these ones down!" he tells Al, shoving his text back to him and pointing excitedly.

Al complies, shaking his head at what will doubtless turn out to be another mad plan.

Scorpius puts the two completed lists on the desk and pulls out a bottle of red ink. He dips his quill into it and starts underlining. "See?"

Al starts to laugh. "Genius," he agrees. He shifts the many small cauldrons he's put in place to the far side of their desk and lifts a larger version front and centre.

Seventy-three minutes later Scorpius and Al approach their Potions teacher with nine small flasks, each carefully labelled. Oakeshott looks at them doubtfully, then looks at the flasks, then looks back to them with a face that is quizzical. He opens each flask in turn and smells it, tasting some and testing others with his wand and with reagent strips. Now he is beaming with sheer pleasure.

"Seven years I've been setting this class, and you two are the first to get them all done in the allotted period. Which means that you've twigged to the underlying lesson."

"It was Scorp, sir," Albus says loyally.

"Only because Al's drilled me in reading all the way through a potion before I start it," Scorpius shares the praise graciously. "When you look at all of them at the same time, it's obvious the first half to each is the same underlying potion with just details on top of it."

"Full marks to the two of you!" Oakeshott stops the rest of the class and has Scorpius and Al talk them through their process for the remaining quarter hour. At the end of their demonstration he gives the rest of the class a blanket pass, for asking sensible and productive questions. "And remember, that is the style of thinking that will see you do well in your OWLs! Anyone can pull out an A or even an E from rote learning, but if you want to achieve an O in this class, you'll need originality and perceptiveness! On that note, I feel twenty points each to Ravenclaw and Gryffindor are in order."

Al is jubilant, as that 20 points kicks Gryffindor into first place in the House Cup, not that there's more than 40 separating all the Houses, but every small success counts. "I see a celebratory period of hot chocolate and competitive flying before dinner!" he announces.

Scorpius agrees. They race to the Room of Requirement and have already set new records for a two-lap sprint and Wronski feint by the time a house-elf appears with a tray of hot chocolate.

"Thanks, Manny," Al tells the elf, and pulls a small book from his pocket. "I found a copy of the next in the _Barnacles_ series in a second-hand shop, I just wanted to show you how much I appreciate you always being so nice to me."

Manny smilingly slips the book under his woollen tunic. "We all want the younger Mr Potter to be happy!" he assures Al, before hastening away.

Scorpius shakes his head. "Shameless," he declares. "Happy to buy their affection and trade on memories of your father and aunt whenever it suits you."

"Yeah, you've caught me out. I have an unnatural fancy for the house-elves."

Scorpius realises too late the pain of freshly made hot chocolate administered nasally. "I take it all back, James is not the bad Potter at all!"

"Of course he's not!" Al laughs. "Haven't you met Lily?"

They flop down on their favourite sofa, feet tucked up and cradling their mugs to them as the evening cools the school and the warmth of exercise wears off.

"How's your Muggle Studies scroll going?" Albus asks.

"Good, you?"

"Yeah, not bad. I just keep thinking that there's more to it than we're seeing. I know that everyone makes comparisons between the rise of Grindelwald and the Reich, but no-one seems to talk about the differences in responses between wizarding and Muggle Britain. And they're huge. We panicked and looked for salvation in first the Ministry and then Dumbledore, they invented bouncing bombs and had singalongs in Tube stations ..."

Scorpius looks at Al with shining eyes. "That's exactly what I've been thinking about!" he exclaims. "They were so valiant about it all. We helped them so little in those years, yet they managed so well without us. Not knowing about magic, they relied on innovation, technology, fortitude and cooperation. They had no Department of Mysteries, and our Minister wasn't going to reveal the fact we did, so they built Bletchley and they did the whole job by hand, with cards and brains.

"And they liberated Europe. This tiny island of Muggles held out long enough to turn the tide of the war until help could arrive, and they used their strengths as diplomats to construct an alliance across nations that hated each other. We're always talking about how we need to hide our magic from them, but I think we should be studying them and learning more from them, because for all that they can be bloody idiots, they're also amazing."

Al's eyes are dancing. "You're amazing," he says, and Scorpius forgets to breathe. Instead he watches the corners of Al's mouth curve into a smile and feels his own heart thump as Al moves ever so slightly towards him.

Scorpius puts his foot on the floor to shift his own angle on the sofa.

_At last. Come quick, your father is hurt, they need you._

"What is it?" Al's face is worried, and there is pain growing in it.

"There's something wrong!"

"I ..."

"Outside. Can't you feel it? There's something happening."

"Let's see." Al takes the mugs, puts them down and leads Scorpius through the door. Less than ten seconds later they hear his name being called.

Emily Craddock is relieved to see them. "We've been looking everywhere for the last quarter hour! Don't panic, Goshawk says no-one's dead, but she wants to see you right away. You, too, Potter."

"How did you know?" Al asks as they run.

"I just did," Scorpius answers. Al takes his hand as they reach the headmistress's office, and Scorpius feels less frightened as he tells the gargoyle they are there.

Professor Goshawk opens the door herself. "At last!" she exclaims. "This school can be too large sometimes. Mr Malfoy, do not be alarmed, but I am sorry to say that your father has been hurt and is in St Mungo's. He is expected to make a full recovery, although I'm told he's a little battered at the moment. The Ministry have asked that you attend him, and suggested that Mr Potter would be a good choice to go along and support you. Given it's Friday, I've arranged for transport so the two of you can spend the weekend in London. Your mother will meet you at St Mungo's and will see you both make it back in time for classes on Monday. Don't fret," she pats Scorpius's shoulder briskly, "I'm sure he's fine, I've spoken to his Healers myself."

Scorpius has often been thankful for the headmistress's practicality. As she marches them to the school gates, she tells them they are excused the weekend's homework and that clothes have been arranged for them. "So don't worry yourself," she tells Scorpius. "And thank you," she adds to Al. "Ah, here's your transport."

"Granddad!" Al says, surprised.

Arthur Weasley smiles at the two boys, and nods a greeting to their headmistress. "Right, lads. Percy and Bill both wanted the honours, but I told them they'd be better sorted making sure your father has everything he needs." This last he directs at Scorpius, who is relieved to see a somewhat familiar face.

"Have you seen him?" he asks. "Is he really all right?"

"I have, he's basically fine, just a bit battered around the edges. He'll be right as rain in a week or two."

"What happened?" Scorpius knows it can't have been a minor accident, he would have been told about it in a letter, the news framed in an amusing anecdote, if he was told at all.

"He asked me to let him tell you that, so I will. Hold on tight, boys. Cheers, Miranda." And with that he Apparates.

The foyer of St Mungo's is as sterile and intimidating as Scorpius remembers from the time he fell off his broom when he was eight. Mr Weasley hustles the boys upstairs and into the private wing where he meets up with three more Mr Weasleys. Scorpius has met Rose's dad and her uncle Bill before, and has seen photographs of Percy Weasley in the _Prophet_, where they call him Percy the Powerbroker. There are three other wizards there, Al identifies them as Aurors who work with his Dad and Uncle Ron.

The buzz of talk that the boys could hear on their approach dies as they near the group. Ron Weasley smiles encouragingly at Scorpius. "He's going to be just fine," he says. "And you should see the magnificent black eye he's sporting. It's like being back at school ..."

Scorpius gives a watery smile in reply, and heads for the door to the ward. He pauses for a moment, Al reaches over his shoulder and pushes it open. "I'm here," he whispers, and Scorpius steps forward.

His father is sitting up in bed talking animatedly to two journalists, one from the_ Prophet_ and one from _The Quibbler_. In a chair on the far side of the room Mr Potter is sprawled with a look of impatient fury about him. As they spot the boys, Scorpius's father dismisses the journalists and Mr Potter stands up in a relaxed and friendly pose.

Scorpius's father holds his arms out. "It's all right, it's just bruises for the most part."

Scorpius throws himself into those arms. "I was so worried!" he exclaims.

"I told them all to tell you I was fine."

"Yeah, but you're not fine. What happened?"

Scorpius's father looks over his head at the journalists who have paused at the door. "One photo?" one of them asks, to cover up their prying.

Scorpius nods his assent. "One," his father replies with ill grace. Two flashes of light indicate the shots being taken, and Mr Potter ensures the press leave.

"What happened?" Scorpius repeats.

"It's going to be in the papers tomorrow, which is why I wanted you to hear it from me. There was an attack near the Ministry. They call themselves Magical Action and say they're an anti-Death Eater group, but what they're really about is acts of terrorism. Harry and Ron Weasley caught the two who planted the explosion I was caught in, and Bill's frozen their funds at Gringotts. The top Aurors are looking for the rest of the group, and Ron Weasley is convinced he can get the two we have to talk. So I don't want you thinking of these people as anything more than a handful of misguided fools."

"Anti-Death Eater?" Scorpius starts his question at the most appalling part of his father's story.

"I know, as if I'd wear a hood. It's an outrageous calumny."

Scorpius refuses to laugh. "Dad, this is serious. Were you the target?"

Mr Potter comes and stands near the bed. Scorpius's father looks to him for help, so he takes up the story. "Draco told me and Ron that there was something up, he's developed a new way of scanning for Dark Magic, or peaceful magic being used for dark purposes. When he saw the spike in his readings, he told us about it. Then he insisted on putting himself in danger so that we could catch the culprits. Except his readings underestimated the strength of the spells they were using and Ron and I were further away than we should have been."

"Yes, you were." Scorpius's mother is standing in the open door. She spares a moment to hug and kiss her son, then returns to scolding the two men. "And why you thought it was acceptable to risk the only man who truly understands half of the spells that your department now relies on is something I will never understand, and why he thought it was a sensible plan to put himself in such a position is another eternal mystery. It is as though you are still stupid schoolboys." She drags Al into a hug with her spare arm. "Except that schoolboys are far smarter than that."

"I'm fine," her ex-husband assures her.

"Yes, now, but if Mr Ronald Weasley had not done some mediwizard training, you could have bled to death from your damaged spleen or punctured a lung with your broken ribs. You are a grown man with responsibilities, you should leave 'catching the bad guys' to these fools of Aurors with their leather coats and ready wands." Mr Potter moves his hand away from its habitual position near the wand pocket of his coat at her words.

She looks at Scorpius, who is startled to realise that his eyes are level with hers. "Your father is equally brave and stupid. You will have to compel him to be smarter, I no longer have influence." And with that she lets go of the boys, sits in the seat recently vacated by Mr Potter and pulls a slim novel from her handbag.

"Spleen?" Scorpius is now afraid. "How big was this explosion?"

"Big enough," his father says with a shrug. "We tried to contain it, but since the spell was designed for me, I wasn't as successful as the others were."

"Who did you arrest?" he asks Mr Potter.

"I can't tell you that yet," he replies. "But we are confident we'll have the rest in custody soon. We know it's only a small group, and they're not gaining in popularity. If anything, their actions have made some other activists too embarrassed to go on."

Scorpius turns back to his father. "Just, just stay inside, okay?"

Mr Potter pats his shoulder. "We have Aurors guarding him here, and more set up back at the Manor. Your mother will have a guard, too. I'd like you to have one until you go back to Hogwarts, too." At Scorpius's horrified look, Mr Potter smiles. "I know, believe me I know. But imagine how I'd feel if anything happened to you because my department let you gad about alone. If your dad didn't kill me, my son would."

"It's not true," Scorpius's mother calls from her chair. "I'd have dissected you long before they could get to you. They would have to content themselves with defiling your corpse."

Absurdly, this makes them all laugh.

The headlines in the_ Prophet_ the next day are sobering. Under a bold banner of MINISTRY BLAST there are two photographs, one of the gaping hole and wrecked cars left by the explosion itself, and one of Scorpius and his father in the hospital.

"Why an explosion?" Scorpius wonders.

"Dad thinks they're trying to create a climate of fear. Explosions usually take out lots of people, not just the one target. They were lucky your dad was able to mostly predict it, they had time to seal the area off."

"Your dad will catch the others, won't he?"

Al takes his hand and squeezes it. "Of course he will. He knows that it pisses your dad off when he's perfect, and who needs more motivation than that?

Scorpius laughs, but his worry does not dissipate.

When Scorpius's mother takes them back to school on Sunday night, with no progress made on the case, the worry congeals into a tight knot in the pit of Scorpius's stomach.

Albus organises Scorpius through the next month, and so he arrives at Easter holidays up to date on all of his schoolwork and well prepared for the exams they will be coming back to. Al is spending the break with his mother, so Scorpius devotes himself to his books, with only occasional breaks for flying practice, both on wing and on broom and chats with his parents and the Aurors who are guarding them.

When Rose Granger-Weasley appears one afternoon he is pleased to see her, but surprised. She seems a little wan as he invites her in for tea.

"I flew from the Burrow," she admits, leaning her broom against the outside of the Manor. "I just had to get away from James. That or kill him. Mum and Dad know I'm here, Dad says he'll come and pick me up later if that's all right."

"Of course it is." Scorpius leads her into the front sitting room and sends a house-elf for tea and cakes. "What did he do?"

Rose shrugs off the question and asks after his father, who, having heard voices, makes an appearance shortly after. Scorpius's mother joins them for tea and conversation revolves around exams and study for the next hour or so.

At length, Scorpius's mother declares that the day is getting on and that she ought to go and send for Mr Weasley. She waits pointedly at the door until Scorpius's father joins her.

Rose smiles after them. "Your parents are nice. Even my Dad thinks your dad's all right these days."

Scorpius smiles wryly. "It's amazing what getting blown up can do to mend bridges."

"James kissed me," Rose says suddenly. "And then he _apologised_, and when I said it was fine he told me I was an idiot."

"Oh." Scorpius can't help thinking that her romantic issues don't quite match up to his own.

Rose smiles at him. "I suppose I am an idiot. Why on Earth would I want to go out with James anyway? He's a mollop. Anyway, I just wanted to get away and chat with someone who just likes me for me. So thanks, Scorp." She leans over to kiss him on his cheek as usual. But at the last minute she shifts and kisses him gently on the lips. She smells of sugar and raspberry jam, and it's nice.

"If I was sensible, I'd go out with you. You'd just need to stop hanging out with Albus long enough to ask me," she says, smiling softly.

Her father's voice calls her name from outside, and they walk quickly out to meet up with him and Scorpius's parents, who seem to have managed a few minutes of pleasant small talk very well.

After she leaves, Scorpius wonders why only the wrong people kiss him these days.

It's a relief to be back at school, away from the slight tension between his parents, away from the changed reality signalled by the patrolling Aurors. He and Al are the first ones in for dinner and promptly fill each other in on the weeks' gossip.

"Rose thinks we should go out," Scorpius tells Al, who promptly chokes on his coffee.

Scorpius pours water for him and smacks him helpfully on the back. "She came to see me after she had a big fight with James. And she kissed me. It was all very odd, I certainly wasn't expecting her to say anything like that. I was just expecting to feed her tea and cake."

Al recovers quickly. "What do you think?" he asks.

Scorpius shrugs. "I was surprised. What do you think?" he asks, and he tries to invest the question with all that it really means to him. For a moment he thinks he's managed it. Al looks down, his cheeks are red.

"Albus," Scorpius's voice is soft. "Tell me."

Al looks up at him. And the naked expression that fleets across those green eyes says everything, everything he has ever dreamed, ever hoped. But the words he speaks are different.

"Yeah, sure, Rose is great. It's about time you had a girlfriend."

Scorpius suddenly recalls that he has an urgent meeting with Professor McGonagall.

He asks the castle where the Grey Lady is, and goes to sit with her on the roof of Ravenclaw Tower.

"Are you happy, little one?" she asks him.

He shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak yet.

"Is it love? Love always ends badly. At least nobody has been stabbed yet."

"Give it time ..." he jokes blackly.

By the time he goes back down into the common room, everyone is back from dinner and Rose is there, smiling at him shyly.

"Albus had a word with me," she confides.

"Of course he did," Scorpius sighs.

She puts her head to one side, and her long red curls tumble down over her shoulder. "He told me I was being selfish expecting you to do all the work when your mind is so full of bigger problems. He told me that I ought to just do this ..." Rose puts her hand on the back of Scorpius's head and draws his lips down to hers, where she softly but assuredly kisses them. The common room erupts in applause.

And standing there, with her stepping back and looking at him so hopefully, and all their House-mates laughing and smiling encouragement, Scorpius doesn't have the heart to do anything other than take her hand and ask "Rose, will you go out with me?"

Rose is an undemanding girlfriend. They spend much of the rest of term studying together, and she understands that Scorpius and Al's friendship is important, making sure that the two boys have time alone together at least once a day. She says that Lily told her clinginess is unattractive.

Albus accepts Rose's shift from friend to girlfriend without comment. Scorpius never quite works out how to broach the topic. Instead they all swot for their OWLs together and drink endless pots of coffee, but always in one common room or other. Scorpius never thinks to mention the Room of Requirement to Rose.

Professor McGonagall checks on Scorpius the day before his Transfiguration exam. "You will, of course, get an O," she tells him, "but I'm not sure they need to see any personal research ..." She raises an eyebrow. "If you understand me?"

"I do," he assures her.

"Good boy. But feel free to add complexity to the transfigurations they ask you to perform, it's an easy way to score higher marks."

They chat amiably about what he can expect for a little while, and she wishes him luck. As she leaves, she pauses for a moment. "How are your parents?" she asks.

"They're fine," he assures her.

"That's good."

She is right, he does receive an O for Transfiguration. And four others, he learns when the results are posted. Albus can't resist laughing over the fact that one of them is in Potions.

"You got the same mark!" Scorpius points out.

"Course I did, we came equal first. Oonagh Quigley's ropable. And Rose may kill you once she learns you beat her in Muggle Studies."

"Nah, she left me behind in Arithmancy, I only managed an E."

"You both made Os in Charms, that's all Flitwick will care about. Anyway, six Es isn't exactly crapping out, is it?"

"You should talk!"

"Yeah, not all good news there. Still, Mum and Dad can't complain about my A in Astronomy, they both failed."

Scorpius laughs. "I think we're both in for parental praise, and possibly treats for being boy geniuses."

"Excellent news. Mum and Dad have both said they want you to come and stay for a few days, by the way. Will that be OK?"

"Yes, of course it will, so we fit in one more house through the hols, what's so different?"

"I thought you might want to spend time with Rose ..."

Scorpius has temporarily forgotten he has a girlfriend, so naturally she appears at that moment, pushing her hair up into a ponytail and peering at the results boards.

"I cannot believe you all let me sleep in today! I have the worst friends in the world! How the hell did you beat me in Muggle Studies? Albus Potter, there is no way on this Earth that you get the same marks as me, what's Scorp been doing? Downloading his brain into yours?"

Scorpius takes a step back from the boards and leaves Rose to find her six Os and five Es by herself. He smiles as she playfully pushes her cousin, and is pleased to see her happiness at her own success, and at Al's and his.

He wishes he could download his brain, but he's afraid that anyone looking at it would turn to him with an expression of abject pity.


	6. Chapter 6

XIX

Despite Mr Ronald Weasley being the second-most highly ranked Auror in Britain, he takes his turn guarding Malfoy Manor. Scorpius is pleased and nervous about this in equal parts.

His nervousness is rewarded when Mr Weasley spots him looking out from his window and beckons him down into the garden.

"So, you and Rose, eh?" he opens the conversation, smiling down on Scorpius as they walk around the gardens.

Rose is so dainty, Scorpius always forgets how physically imposing her father is and, in full Auror regalia, he suspects he might be enough to scare away any goons from Magical Action by himself. "Yeah ..." Scorpius replies, as always slightly unsure how to even begin describing the relationship.

"I'm guessing she decided you were going out," Mr Weasley surmises, amused.

"Sort of, she let me do the actual asking, though."

Mr Weasley laughs loudly at that. "How did your dad react when you told him?"

Scorpius shrugs. "He told me that she was probably too good for me and that her grandmother would kill me if I put a foot wrong. Then he added that she's a lovely girl and that he's happy so long as I'm happy." He grins when he remembers this conversation. His father has always known when to stop talking, and he could see, and was profoundly grateful for, all the questions he didn't ask.

"Your dad's all right," Mr Weasley says. "And my mum coped with the news better than could be expected. Rose's mum told her that she wasn't to make a fuss unless she wanted to encourage Rose to run away with you to Majorca."

Scorpius starts. "Spain? With Rose? I wasn't even allowed to go with Lester this year thanks to those bloody nutters out there."

Mr Weasley ruffles his hair. "Don't worry, mate, we've rounded up a few more, can't be many left now. It's weeks since they raised their heads. By the time you go back to school, we should be sorted."

"Great. It's as though they're in league with Dad to make me study through the holidays." They walk a little further before Scorpius manages to find the words he has been wanting to say to Mr Weasley for months now. "Thanks for saving my Dad. Mum says that if you weren't there, he probably would have died."

Scorpius looks up at Mr Weasley as he finishes speaking, but the Auror's gaze is focused firmly on the ground in front of his shoes. "That's OK," he replies, somewhat embarrassed. "I feel half responsible for getting him hurt in the first place. He was so keen to show us how his new spells worked, Harry and I didn't even think it through to realise he'd be in danger. Bloody stupid on our part."

"Dad always says he likes to step outside his Department, I think he was happy to see his plans in action for once."

Mr Weasley flashes a grin at Scorpius. "Is that what he tells you? Right. No mention of the fact that he always insists on checking new procedures in person?"

Scorpius is amused. "None. He says his job is dull as can be aside from the intellectual satisfaction."

Ron Weasley whispers with a conspiratorial gleam in his eyes, "So he won't have mentioned what happened when he first came up with the scanning spells?"

Scorpius is intrigued. "No, do tell!"

"He calibrated it to pick up dark Magic artefacts that were being smuggled out of Britain. There he was, down at the Docks, running ahead of me and Harry, wand drawn – all of a sudden he's jumped by two Muggles who are waiting on a drugs shipment. They've dragged him in between two goods containers, we can't even see him, Harry races ahead of me and then just bloody Apparates, and I am seconds behind, wand at the ready, curses on my lips, when I hear Harry and your dad laughing their heads off."

"What happened?"

"Your dad had turned both the Muggles into hedgehogs, which would have been funny in itself, but then Harry Apparated into a puddle, slipped over, and narrowly avoided landing on them."

Scorpius laughs at the image. He's pleased to know that his father's work life isn't all the long hours in labs and wrangling Unspeakables he's been led to believe. And while he's not convinced he approves of the element of danger his father seems to embrace, he finds it hard to believe that he could come to any lasting harm while he's working with Mr Weasley and Mr Potter.

At that moment, the Apparition klaxon sounds and Mr Weasley throws Scorpius behind him, away from the direction of the siren. The Ward is quickly silenced, indicating either a friend or a breaching of the spell. Scorpius can see the other Aurors on patrol moving into defensive positions around the gardens and house. Mr Weasley's wand is drawn and he is mouthing a shield while waiting to see if attack is needed, then he puts his wand down and steps to one side, the situation at ease. Scorpius sees Mr Potter walking quickly towards them, a smile on his face. Mr Weasley looks around, sees Scorpius's wand drawn and claps his shoulder approvingly.

"Harry," Mr Weasley greets Mr Potter.

"Ron, Scorpius," Mr Potter answers. "Good news. Where's Malfoy?"

"Inside."

"Come on." Mr Potter turns quickly and leads them into the Manor. "Draco!" he yells once inside the doors.

"Harry?" Scorpius hears his father before he sees him. A few seconds later he appears at a run, wand in hand, at the top of the staircase, looking unsure until he notes the smiles on the faces of the men below.

"Got 'em," Mr Potter calls up happily.

Scorpius's father makes his way downstairs quickly. "All of them?" he asks.

"All of them." And with a laugh, Mr Potter hugs Scorpius's father, ruffling his hair.

Surprised, but smiling, Scorpius's father hugs Mr Potter back for a long moment. "Good job," he declares. He steps away and briefly hugs Mr Weasley. "Well done, both of you. I'll never call you scruffy layabouts again."

Scorpius laughs, because his father looks almost absurdly elegant between the two Aurors. His tailored black shirt and trousers are at odds with their leather coats, kicker boots and the longish hair most Aurors affect. All three of them are grinning manically, and his father reaches out and pulls him into a hug, laughing too. "Proper birthday party for you, then," he announces.

"Party? So ..." Scorpius's mother is at the top of the stairs, with Narcissa behind her. Narcissa is trying to subtly put down the marble bust she is holding in one hand at the same time as putting away the wand she is holding in the other, having twigged a moment later than Scorpius's mother to the fact that the alarm was a false one.

"All miscreants apprehended!" Scorpius's father says, laughing. "Our Boys in Black have done their work well and we are now able to resume our normal lives."

Scorpius's mother comes down the stairs and kisses the cheeks of Mr Potter and Mr Weasley. "You are magnificent," she tells them. "So, who are the leaders? And what do you plan to do with them?"

"They'll be tried at the Wizengamot, Mrs Malfoy, just like their followers," Harry tells her, his face losing its smile and becoming dark.

"But you are tired!" Scorpius's mother declares. "Come and sit in the drawing room, I will have food brought."

She ushers them into the formal room beside the entrance hall and mutters a request to a house-elf. Mr Potter thanks her and she puts her hand on his arm saying, "It is nothing, Harry. And you must call me Helene, Helene de Dreux."

Scorpius is surprised to hear the rich trill in his mother's voice as she speaks, and he realises with a small degree of horror that she is flirting. He is happy to see that the degree of horror he feels is as nothing compared to that experienced by Mr Potter, who smiles politely, detaches himself, then walks purposely across the room to sit between Mr Weasley and Scorpius's father.

"So who do we have to thank for the excitements of the last six months?" Scorpius's father asks, his tone not as light as he is trying to make it.

"The two at the centre of things were Peter Abbott and Barrington Warwick," Mr Potter replies.

Scorpius's father frowns. "Peter Abbott I understand. Death Eaters killed his wife. But Warwick was a Snatcher, and his brother was a Death Eater. How the hell does he decide that attacking me makes sense?"

"I think I know," says Scorpius's mother. Everyone looks at her in surprise, especially Narcissa.

She takes a glass of wine from the tray one of the house-elves is offering around, and continues: "My grandfather would tell me stories of the last Wars when I was a girl; both the Muggle war and the wizarding one. And it was easy for him to tell his tales, he was a hero who saved many people.

"But there were many others who were forced to appease, and they kept silent; and still others who chose to collaborate, and those who could not forgive themselves became mean, vicious, and looked about for others who they could lay the blame for their choices upon.

"Because there is nothing harder for some men than to admit that it was they who made the mistakes that haunt their lives."

She takes a long swallow of wine and sighs. "I am afraid, dear Draco, that no matter what you have done in your life, your name, this house, will always make you a target for men like this."

Narcissa has already finished her first glass of wine and is most of the way through her second. "Too true," she says. "And entirely my fault."

"Don't be ridiculous, mother," Scorpius's father says gently. "I'm responsible for my own youthful stupidity. So it's my fault."

"I think you'll find it's mine," says Mr Potter. And Scorpius has never heard such a quiet voice be so arresting. The air is filled with a thickness of anticipation, and he realises that this is a conversation he has not earned entry to. He quietly moves towards the door.

"Stay," says Mr Potter. "It's taken me almost two years, but I'm finally ready to answer your question."

Scorpius comes back into the room and sits beside his mother. She puts her hand on his shoulder and leaves it there in reassurance.

"Your grandmother saved my life on the night of the Battle of Hogwarts. She lied to Voldemort, in full knowledge that she would be killed in an instant if he found out. I've never told anyone that until now. Your father followed his two friends who had a plan to capture me and hand me over, he had a plan to stop them. I let people believe that he was working with them, because I was so angry with him after the fighting had ended. And that wasn't the first time he'd saved my life. In fact ..." Mr Potter looks about the room, and finally up at the chandelier, "... I think the first time was in this room, although it looks different."

"We've redecorated," Scorpius's father says weakly. "Purple was so last regime."

Mr Potter holds Scorpius's father's eyes for a long moment, Scorpius only realises how long when he must finally take a breath. Then his father speaks.

"I failed to save you, Harry. All of my war stories are stories of failure, no matter what I tried to do. I even failed myself. So how about we don't revisit them? How about we accept that today, you've done a good job and life can go back to normal."

Mr Potter opens his mouth to speak, but Mr Weasley beats him to it. "You've made up for it since, though." Scorpius's father and Mr Potter both look at him with surprise, and he continues: "Seriously, half the reason the Aurors can be trusted now is that you gave us spells that let us rely on skill rather than sneaking about. If you'd stayed locked in the Manor after the War, we'd still have a Ministry that spent most of its time battling itself and its own people. We couldn't have changed it without you."

"I think your wife's legislative reforms might have had some impact," Scorpius's father says, though he can't keep his smile at bay.

"Yeah, of course, but you know what I mean."

"He's right," says Mr Potter, quietly.

Scorpius's father grins. "Well, obviously I had to invent spells for _you_. Otherwise you'd have become famous as the Auror who took bad people's wands away, and sooner or later someone would have figured out to carry a gun ..."

Mr Weasley roars with laughter, and Mr Potter smiles. Scorpius realises that his grandmother has tears on her cheeks, and he moves to sit beside her. His mother stands up suddenly. "But there are still men patrolling the gardens, we should bring them inside, there are many cakes and more sandwiches than even four Englishmen can eat."

"Merlin, I completely forgot." Mr Potter shakes his head.

"I shall bring in more wine," says Scorpius's mother.

"Thanks, but they're not meant to drink while on duty," Mr Potter says.

"Oh Harry, you are their boss, you can give them the afternoon off." And at that Mr Potter smiles, and agrees that he can.

All three men stand to go and call the remaining Aurors in, then all three defer to each other. Harry puts a hand on the shoulder of each of the others and gently pushes them back into their chairs. "My team, I'll go," he says. His hand lingers on Scorpius's father's shoulder. "Draco, I'm sorry."

Scorpius's father shakes his head. "Don't be." He pats Mr Potter's hand. "I made my own choices and they've worked out well for the most part." Mr Potter smiles and heads outside.

Scorpius's mother calls for more wine, butterbeer and firewhiskey, and more plates and glasses. Looking at Mr Weasley she adds a request for hot pies. The Aurors traipse in, all grinning at the news of the investigation's success, and begin to load their plates with food. "Should we wait for Mr Potter?" Scorpius's mother asks her ex-husband.

He smiles at her fondly. "He's not coming back," he says. He's right.

Some hours later, Mr Weasley makes a point of seeing Scorpius before he goes. "Your dad says yes to a party, so we'll make sure everyone's here for it."

Scorpius grins at him. "Thanks. Say hi to Rose for me. I'll write and let her know what's happened."

Mr Weasley puts an arm around Scorpius's shoulders. "On that topic, Hermione and I were hoping you could pop over tomorrow and say hi to her in person. I was going to schedule a guard detail, but now you can just fly or have your dad Apparate you."

"Yeah, that'd be great. And I can stay with the Potters later in the hols, now, so we can see each other more."

Mr Weasley smiles at him. "She'd like that. You cheer her up and give her something other than books to obsess over. It's good."

After Mr Weasley leaves, Scorpius goes to his room and writes a long letter to Rose. After sending it off to be Owled, he writes a far longer one to Albus, happy that he remembered to share his news in the right order.

The rest of the holidays pass in a whirl of visits and Scorpius's sixteenth birthday party. Rose gives him a Ravenclaw scarf that she knitted. Albus gives him Winston Churchill's _The Second World War_. All his friends stay at the Manor that week, and even James manages to behave himself.

When they meet again at Kings Cross Station on the first of September, the Malfoy and Potter families are there together by design and are joined by the Granger-Weasleys. Luna Lovegood also joins them, as she and Ginny Weasley are due to head off on an expedition through Iceland that evening.

Scorpius looks forward to sixth year with calm happiness. It is pleasant being Rose's boyfriend, and, thanks to their conniving friends they end up with their own compartment in the Prefects' carriage. She kisses him and snuggles beside him, her soft red hair curling over his shoulder while he reads and she comments on his book. They take it in turns to make rounds to ensure the younger students aren't killing each other.

Each time they return, another prefect accompanies them. Slowly their compartment fills up with the same friends who were planning to give them space.

Laura Wadcock is patiently explaining to James that just because they are Head Boy and Head Girl, it is not a portent that they should go out. Maisie Carrington, thrilled that she is a prefect and her nemesis Lily is not, has given up on boys altogether and decided that Oonagh Quigley is simply fascinating. Oonagh, sensing a year of never having to get her own coffee, has turned her charisma up to high.

It is warm and comforting, and Scorpius feels safe among these people. Laura asks what he is reading, he holds it out to her.

"Muggle book, eh? Planning ahead for when you're Minister of Magic and need to deal with their PM?" she asks smilingly.

"Oh Al's going to be Minister of Magic," he replies with a glance at his friend, who nods his agreement.

Laura laughs. "What are you planning then? Prime Minister?"

Scorpius and Albus both look at her evenly. "Well, obviously," Scorpius says.

Laura shakes her head at the two of them and continues to do so every time she sees them together, well into term.

Sixth year lacks the immediate exam stresses of fifth year, and once timetables are sorted, everything rolls along pleasantly and evenly. So it comes as a shock to Scorpius when, while he is changing for the Halloween Feast, Ryan Timms suddenly runs into the dorm shouting his name.

"What's up?"

"My aunt," Ryan pants, "she lives near your place in Wiltshire. She just Floo'd me. There's something going on at the Manor, she says the grounds are crawling with Aurors and she could see a fire."

"Fuck!" Scorpius grabs a bag and stuffs it with textbooks and a change of clothes. "Is that it? Did she know who ..." He can't bring himself to ask if anyone is inside.

Ryan understands. "That's all she knew. How are you going to get there?"

Scorpius is frantic. "I could fly, but it'll take hours, even if I Transfigure. I could Floo from Hogsmeade ..."

Ryan shakes his head. "They know you there. They'd never help a student run away." He reaches under his robes and pulls out a paper timetable. "Listen, the next train leaves Hogsmeade in thirty-two minutes. That'll get you to Inverness in time for the evening flight to Luton. Do you have any Muggle money?"

Scorpius rummages through his drawer and pulls out a small bundle of pounds and a credit card. "Stash, in case of emergencies," he says grimly.

Ryan gives a half-smile in support. "It's generational. My parents drummed escape routes into me, too. Here, take my computer," he pulls a small electronic device out from under his robes. "It should work by the time you get to the station. Do you know how to use it?"

"Enough to book a ticket at any rate. Thanks, you're a mate."

"You can catch the Knight bus at Luton, if they can't get you home they can at least drop you at Swindon."

"Easy fly from there," Scorpius agrees, grabbing his broom. Then he puts his bag and broom down again and hugs Ryan briefly. "Seriously, thank you, and thank your aunt for me." He picks up his possessions again and walks swiftly to the door with Ryan accompanying him. "Can you cover for me?" he asks.

"Already sorted," Ryan assures him. "I'm going to tell everyone you've got food poisoning after that dire excuse for sausages at lunch."

"Glamorous, cheers." Scorpius chuckles grimly. "Can you tell Al where I've gone?"

"Yeah, course," Ryan promises, pausing now they're at the oak doors. "And Rose, too."

"Thanks, I'll try and get back by morning." Scorpius throws a leg over his broom.

"Good luck," Ryan tells him, his voice following Scorpius up into the air.

Twelve minutes and four Galleons into the ticket machine later, Scorpius realises he should have walked. Then he would have arrived here just before the train. The station is all but deserted and the waiting rooms are locked due to early knock-off for the festivities. The train is due in twenty minutes, and he has only textbooks to distract him from the fact that anything could be happening at his home. He uses Ryan's computer to book a flight and is again frustrated at the unwillingness of the wizarding world to embrace instant news reporting.

Eleven minutes later he has walked up and down the platform five times and can confidently declare that it is three-hundred and eighty-two steps long. He hears his name being shouted.

James and Lily Potter come out of the sky on brooms and land flanking him. "You need to come back to school," James tells him in a hurried voice. "Dad Floo'd, your family are fine, the Manor's OK, just a bit of charcoal around one window. Your dad says he'll come and see you tomorrow but if you get suspended for bunking off he is docking your pocket money from now until you're seventeen."

"My dad said that?" Scorpius raises an eyebrow.

James shrugs. "My Dad said your dad said that, so he may have actually threatened to strangle my dad if he didn't stop you doing something stupid, but that's the version I was told."

Lily takes his bag and broom from his unresisting hands, puts them down and gives him a hug, with no groping, so he knows she is being serious.

"Dad was in a panic. He told us to go and find you and when you weren't at the feast or in Ravenclaw, we knew you must have already heard the news and bolted. So he told James and me we had to stop you before you got in trouble."

"You and James?" Scorpius is slightly surprised that Al isn't with them.

"Yeah, he made James immobilise Al before he told us anything," Lily says with a sigh. "He's going to be furious."

"Immobilise him? Why?"

Lily laughs. "Are you joking? He'd have locked the two of us in a cupboard and Apparated the two of you to Wiltshire. You'd have turned up with fingers missing. Dad sent his sensible children. Now be a sensible child yourself and come back to school with us before we all get detention."

Scorpius sits down suddenly on the platform. It takes him a moment before he trusts his voice to speak. "They're really OK?" he asks.

"They're really OK," Lily tells him.

"Dad promised," James agrees. "He'd Apparated back to his office from the Manor so that he could Floo. Your dad made him go straight away. Which just goes to show that you should get the Manor connected to the Floo network."

"Yeah, good point ..." Scorpius agrees in a shaky voice. He stands up. "All right. Let's go back."

When they arrive back at the castle, Scorpius can feel its relief at his return. He runs his hand along the walls as James walks him to Gryffindor Tower, while Lily goes to snaffle them some food. Albus is under a duvet in one corner of the common room, James whips it off and removes the body-bind spell, then leaps quickly out of the way of the kick Al aims at his testicles.

"Are you all right?" Al ignores his brother for his friend.

"Mostly," Scorpius says with a feeble smile.

Al hugs him and guides him over to the sofa nearest the fire. He sits with an arm around his shoulders until Lily returns with an entire basket of food and a house-elf carrying a tray of thick hot chocolates. Lily puts her basket down, then kisses the house-elf's forehead after he has handed out the drinks. "You're a darling! Thank you so much!" she says.

The elf stammers that it was nothing and makes a blushing exit.

Scorpius begins to laugh. "Potters. You're all terrible, terrible people," he says.

"Course we are, Scorp," says Lily sitting at his feet, her brothers having taken both sides of the sofa. "That's why you love us."

"That must be it," he agrees.

Over breakfast the next morning the _Daily Prophet_ arrives, carrying a front page entirely devoted to Peter Abbott's escape from Auror custody and his attack on Malfoy Manor. A photograph takes up half the page, there, under the banner FORGIVENESS, is Abbott sobbing in Narcissa Malfoy's arms, her hand patting his hair as she murmurs gently to him. Despite the alleged terrorist's threats to blow the Manor up, which provoked a siege that required the involvement of twenty-three Aurors including Harry Potter himself, the only casualties, according to the report, were a pair of curtains and an albino peacock.

Rose is horrified at what might have happened. Scorpius is almost giddy with relief as he reads the story again. "I always hated those birds."

He returns Ryan's computer and thanks him. He tells Rose again that he is all right, and silently thanks Lily who remembered to run and collect her for their supper in Gryffindor. Various voices up and down the Ravenclaw table call out to ask him how he thinks his grandmother talked the suicidal Abbott down.

"I think she either fed him cake and tea until he gave up, or else she opened the top buttons on her robes," James opines. "Narcissa Malfoy's still got it in spades, and it would take more than a death wish not to notice."

Scorpius knows he should be appalled, but he is too busy laughing with everyone else.

As promised, his father comes to see him after breakfast. He arrives with Mr Potter and Mr Weasley flanking him. He is wearing the long black robe of an Unspeakable, and his hair is unkempt. Emily Craddock and Laura Wadcock are at the head of the gaggle of students leaving the Great Hall when they spot the three men. They stop in their tracks. The gestures they make with their hands could be mistaken for fanning.

Scorpius runs past them to barrel into his father's arms. He steps back and looks at him closely. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine," his father tells him. "Your grandmother's fine, the house-elves are fine, we are one more peacock on the road to a sane garden and those curtains had to go anyway."

"The _Prophet_ says it was a four-hour siege." Scorpius isn't letting him laugh the incident away.

"Two hours, and there was only any danger for the first five minutes."

"What _happened_?"

"He was angry." Scorpius's father walks a little way down the corridor with him as James, Lily, Al, Rose and Hugo spot and swamp their fathers. "He wanted to be heard, so we listened to him."

"Was that all?" It doesn't make sense to Scorpius that so much anger could be dispelled so easily.

His father smiles gently. "Oh no, we told him we were sorry, and also that we forgave him."

"He tried to have you killed."

"That's what I forgave him for." Scorpius's father looks at him seriously. "He's not an evil man, son. Just an angry man who did bad things. Now a lot of that anger is gone, maybe he can go back to being the man he's meant to be."

Scorpius nods. He thinks he understands.

"Harry tells me that you were sensible and stayed where you were safe last night. I can't tell you how glad I was, we didn't know if there were others out there, I was so worried about what would happen if you left the safety of the school."

Scorpius can see James nodding firmly over his father's shoulder. "Oh, yeah, James and Lily explained the situation and made sure everybody acted reasonably," Scorpius lies smoothly.

"That's a first, there's hope for them yet," Mr Potter says behind him.

Scorpius wants to defend his friends, but there is a limit to the amount of lying he can do in one morning.

They talk for a few more minutes, then Professors Flitwick and McGonagall appear and the family reunion expands into a school one. Scorpius and his classmates are sent off to ready themselves for the day, while the adults catch up for a short period before they are due at the Wizengamot where Scorpius's father plans to speak in favour of leniency for Peter Abbott.

The castle is humming through Scorpius's feet in the way that he has learned to read as happiness. "What is it?" he asks, putting his hands against the stone.

_You never told me they had all become friends,_ it chides him gently. _I had been afraid that they would never forgive each other._

Scorpius is surprised that it has never before occurred to him to ask: "Can you show me what happened between Dad and Harry Potter?"

_I will show you the last time I saw them together when they were young_, it replies. Then it shows him the Great Hall, hangings rent and jewels spilled over the floor. Mr Potter stands in the middle of the room, he is young, pale and bloodied, yet the light of early morning makes him seem golden. In front of him is the twisted body of a man in black robes, and Scorpius realises with a shock that he is seeing the only man Harry Potter has ever caused to die. A look of utter relief comes over that face, so like Albus's, and he looks about, searching, as a cacophony of joyful shouts fills the air. He finds the target of his search and smiles, then frowns.

The castle follows his eyes. Scorpius sees his father, youthful, tattered, being held by Narcissa and a man he assumes must be Lucius. The young Harry Potter looks at the tableau for a moment, until the arms grabbing him and holding him are too insistent and he succumbs to being passed from one hug to the next. He does not look back into the corner of the room where the three pale heads are nestled together. When Scorpius's father at last pulls himself away from his mother's arms, he looks around the room with increasing anxiety, but Harry Potter has already left.

_They never spoke again inside these walls, until you came here,_ the castle tells him. It shows him his father moving to stand by a long row of bodies, then walking along the line until he stops near a young woman, who looks vaguely familiar. He straightens her clothing, wipes dirt from her face with a clean part of his own shirt, puts her hand into the hand of the man beside her, then turns away with a look of deep sorrow.

"Who's that?" Scorpius asks.

_His cousin. They only met a handful of times._ The castle draws its line of sight back, and Scorpius can see how small most of the bodies in that row are. They are his age for the most part, one or two seem even younger. Tears come to his eyes, and the mysteries of his father's life are wrapped into this larger mystery. For how can so much horror have gone past without the world changing entirely? How can division and banality survive this profound break with all that should be sacred?

And yet, over the following months, Scorpius's own life seems to carry on as normal. Only he is aware of its change in focus.

In May, the Wizarding world pauses to mark the 25th anniversary of Liberation.

Scorpius wins the Charity Burbage essay prize and so, on a clear blue and green morning, with birdsong on the breeze, in front of the thousand-odd chairs lined up in formation and filled with students, staff, alumni, parents, and veterans, he takes the podium to speak.

"We stand here on the ground of the Battle of Hogwarts," he says. "On a field where students died because one man believed that his life was the only one that mattered.

"He convinced others that he was right. That they, too, were superior by virtue of birth, by virtue of blood. They followed him. They committed acts of great evil in his name, some because they loved the corrupted freedom evil afforded them, others because they hungered for the power they were promised in reward.

"And we would like to think that we are nothing like them. Although for many of us, they are our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles. We think we would do differently, do better. Because our world is not like their world. We know now the cost of their lies. We know now the horror of their evil.

"And we say to each other, remember our dead. Remember those who died on this field, those who died in the castle. From Severus Snape who gave his life away years before he lost it, to Colin Creevey whose life was snuffed out at the beginning of its brightest years.

"And we do remember them. Their names are carved on the plinth beside Albus Dumbledore's tomb. Fifty-five Liberators lost their lives here that night. We learn their names in our classes, we hold them in our thoughts.

"Seventy-eight Muggles died that day, too. The Village of Little Hangleton was destroyed by Tom Riddle in his rage. If you read their newspapers, they say it was an explosion, caused by poor fuel containment at the garage. Yet every one was dead before they were consumed by the fire.

"Brendan Waters was driving down the High Street with his wife Diana when Riddle struck. His car was found with his three children cowering in the footwells; their parents bought them the time to hide, prayed it would be enough. Sarah, Peter and Mary died with them.

"Gemma Harris was difficult to learn about because the Muggle papers just referred to her as 'student', but if you look hard enough you will find out that she was on her gap year, and that she planned to be a doctor, partly because she thought the money looked nice, partly because she never got over her mum dying of cancer and wanted to use her pain for good.

"The Thompson family died while eating an early dinner, they were killed at the start. Bill Frederickson must have heard what was happening, his wife and daughters made it into their car and halfway across a field. He died with a weapon in his hands, it had been used.

"They fought in our war, too, without understanding why, without hope of success. Yet they fought for the same things we did, for things they loved, be that family, home, or a future …

"So when we remember those who were snatched from us by bigotry and by hate on this day, I ask that we remember there were one hundred and thirty-three of them. And that we remember the thousands whose lives were torn by their loss, and a world made less because they are not here."

Scorpius steps down, and Professor Flitwick steps forward to lead the choir in a song of solace. Albus is there, with his father. James and Lily are with Mrs Potter, on the other side of the aisle. Mr Potter catches Scorpius's hand as he walks past, pulls him down into the empty seat that Flitwick has left. Mr Potter holds onto his hand, and Scorpius realises that it is because his hand is shaking. Mr Potter's is firm, and strong. Albus reaches across his father and covers both hands with his own.

The ceremony ends. Harry Potter has not spoken, he never does at these events, but he is here, and the cameras zoom in on him. They capture him hugging a young blond man. They do not hear the words he whispers. "Your father would be so proud!" he says.

"He wanted to be here, but …" Scorpius shrugs.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Mr Potter, Mr Malfoy!" There are reporters lunging towards them. "How does your father feel about your fondness for Muggles, Mr Malfoy?" Rubeus Hagrid and his wife choose that moment to impose their large selves between the Potters and the press. James and Lily come in beside their father to block Scorpius from the cameras.

"Run," Harry advises the children.

They turn to go, but Minerva McGonagall is there, and Scorpius stops still.

She looks up at him. As though she cannot remember exactly when he grew taller than her. She kisses his cheek gently. "Thank you," she says, quietly. "And Harry is right. Run."

They do. Al takes the lead, Lily runs with him and James takes the rear and they are soon back inside the castle and Scorpius never hears Rose calling after him.

"That was a good speech, Scorp," Lily tells him.

"Yeah," James agrees. "And thanks to you, we don't need to pose for photos. Genius. I'm going to see if there's any morning tea about. Coming?"

Lily follows him, but Scorpius rests against the wall and doesn't quite seem able to move.

Al looks at him, worried. "This won't do," he says. "You're a shambles."

Scorpius realises that his shaking hand has spread, and now it's knees, teeth, everything. Al drags him to the troll tapestry and leans him against the wall while summoning the Room.

_You did well_, the castle reassures him, yet the shaking does not stop.

Al half-carries him inside. Sits him on a sofa, calls a house-elf to bring supplies, then forces Scorpius to drink hot chocolate. Takes the cup away when he splashes too much over the rim. "Scoop, what is it?"

"It shouldn't have been me," Scorpius's voice is too high, too fast. "I've only just realised. I should have let the Headmistress read it, or you, or anyone. Just not me. They're going to make me the story, because I'm a Malfoy. They won't have listened to a word I said!"

Al takes his hands to stop him jiggling them. "It's okay," he says. "Dad is out there with the Press. He'll talk to them. And most of them think he's unhinged, anyway, so now they know he likes you, they'll toe the line in case he hexes them."

Scorpius looks at him with hope. "Do you think?"

"He has to get some benefit out of being Harry Potter," Al grins.

It is such a grin.

Scorpius's hands go to that jaw, and pull that mouth against his own. Years of not touching Al, not smelling his skin, not revelling in the dark madness of his hair, are gone in that second. And Al's mouth is moving, and there is a tongue against the back of Scorpius's teeth and he knows he has never made that sound before.

But he's never known that Al's shoulders or chest felt like this, either, nor felt so giddyingly unbalanced as when Al pushes him back along the sofa, and he's not entirely sure why Al is laughing softly and saying that he knew, that he was certain. Then Al's hands have pushed his dress robes off, and they're under his shirt, and Scorpius is trying to remember what he does and does not know and it's all much too hard.

Except that: "We're meant to be at a memorial service."

"We did that. We fled."

"Is this disrespectful?"

Al cups his face in his hands. "The first thing any of those kids or adults would do if they could come back, is this. Or something very much like it."

"I …"

Al covers his mouth with his hand. "I love you," he says. "I've loved you for such a long time." And his hand moves away but then his mouth is there again and his hands are elsewhere and there is no sense of time in such a fervid whirl of new experience.

And so when Scorpius finally thinks how different this is to being with Rose, it's an hour later, even though he could have sworn it was only minutes. And everything stops with that thought. Al's eyes are as green as spring, and it takes him a moment to see that he has been pushed to one side, and that Scorpius is thrusting his feet into his shoes. He blinks.

"I'm sorry, I can't, I'm sorry …" And Scorpius runs rather than see the next look on Albus's face.

He runs. Everyone is back in the castle, the service is finished and there are students wandering about with tea and cake. People still call "Good speech!" after him, when it's absurd now, because he should have told Rose, he should never have touched Rose, and he thanks providence that a first year is coming out as he reaches the door, because he couldn't answer a question as to his name at this moment.

He bursts into the common room and comes to a dead stop at the sight of Rose in her favourite blue armchair.

He hears the haughty voice of Emily Craddock: "What _do_ you look like?" and he blushes furiously.

He knows exactly what he looks like: shirt untucked and awry, belt unbuckled, lips swollen, neck bruised, and hair that may as well have fingerprints through it.

Rose's voice is cool, but almost encouraging as she stands up. "Tell me it isn't what it seems," she says, a nervous smile playing across her lips.

He can't. It is. It's worse.

He lets her slap him, almost feels better as his head snaps round and his ears ring. But the harsh sob contained in her "Get out!" breaks his heart again.

He runs to his dormitory, and for once fate is with him and there's no one else there. He throws himself against the wall and begs the castle to show him Al.

_You're upset_, it doesn't think this is a good idea.

"Please!"

And there he is. He's sitting on the floor, holding his shirt, and Scorpius's dress robes. He's taking gulping breaths of air and trying very hard not to cry.

_He's confused, he doesn't know why you left,_ the castle tells him.

"Show me Rose," he whispers.

And she is leaning against Emily, keening softly, and Emily looks fit to kill. Then she leaps to her feet and runs from the common room, leaving Emily looking after her.

Scorpius swears, and bangs his head back against the wall.

_Don't._

He steps away deliberately. Decided, he reaches under his bed and pulls out his trunk, then begins to pack his clothes neatly into it. He ignores the castle's attempts to gain his attention, or to soothe him. Then …

_Scorpius!_

The castle has never called him by name before. He sits on the ground, and pats the stones awkwardly.

_You can't lose all of us in the one day._

He laughs and sobs in the one breath, then stretches out, and hugs the floor as best he can. "I'm being an idiot, aren't I?"

_Yes. But you're young. It's allowed._

Smiling to himself, he stands up and starts to take his possessions out of his trunk, which is when Lily Potter runs into his room.

"Oh Malfoy, you cannot be running away again!" she exclaims.

"The brilliant Miss Potter whose genius was only flawed by her being unable to tell the difference between packing and unpacking," he jokes weakly.

She squeezes his hand briefly and sits on the corner of his bed. "Is it terribly awful?" she asks. Ignoring his shrug, she goes on. "Because I have a theory. None of you have ever given me credit for the significant size of my brain." She smiles at his look of incredulity.

"But here's what I've worked out in the last six minutes. Rose ran up to me in the Great Hall and dragged me away from cakes to ask me why I couldn't keep my hands to myself. She is upset and irrational. I file this observation as supporting my hypothesis, then I run up here, to find you looking like a tousled strumpet.

"At the same time I recall that the last time I saw you, you were in my brother's company, the same brother that I have not seen for the past hour, despite practically everyone else being at the Memorial Festival of Cake downstairs."

Lily pauses for dramatic effect. "Ergo," she continues, "you are unbelievably stupid. Luckily, I am one of your best friends and I am a genius. I have left Rose seeking comfort in the broad and, I am told, attractive arms of my other brother. I have then come in search of you so that I may slap you around the head until you start acting like a sensible person, at which point I will take you in search of my missing brother, because goodness knows the two of you are stupid enough for each other. So, are you coming with me to find Al, or do I start slapping?"

Socrpius looks at her in amazement. "How did you get into my dormitory?"

Lily laughs. "For as long as there are Ravenclaw boys, Scorp, I will always be able to get into your dormitory. Coming?" She holds out her hand, Scorpius takes it.

Emily Craddock is looking daggers at them as they walk into the common room. Lily leaves Scorpius for a moment and whispers quickly to Emily, whose face softens into bemusement. "You are so stupid," she tells Scorpius. "But I can keep that quiet, too."

He smiles at her as Lily drags him past and out the door. He remembers that he knows exactly where Al is, but when he tells Lily this, she insists on accompanying him. "One, to make sure you get there, and two, because I will need to intercept Rose if she makes a bid to kill you."

"Three, because you're dying to know where we disappear to," he adds.

"Well, obviously ..."

They arrive at the tapestry. Scorpius walks past the room once, a door appears.

"I thought it took three times," Lily says, surprised.

"It does." Scorpius is just as surprised. He puts a hand on the door.

_Just knock._

He does, and the door opens a crack. "Lil …" he looks over his shoulder.

She is smiling, and already dancing away. "I've done my bit," she tells him. "You're on your own from here."

He is somewhat relieved to hear that.

He steps through the door, and Al is still sitting on the floor, pointedly not looking at him.

"I am an idiot, you know," Scorpius tells him.

Al doesn't look round, but a smile twitches at the corner of his mouth.

"I came back …"

"You left." Al is still looking steadily away.

"I broke up with Rose."

The smile is firmly on Albus's face now. "How did that go?"

Scorpius steps into Al's line of vision and sits beside him. "Badly," he admits.

Al takes in the blooming bruise on Scorpius's cheek. "Oh."

"It's all I deserve."

Al shakes his head slightly, but Scorpius smiles at him.

"No, it is. Because I had no business making her think I cared for her like that when I've been in love with you for such a long time."

"So is she going to kill us?" Al is smiling so brightly, he seems to glow.

"I don't think so, Lily has decided to explain everything and make everyone see sense."

"So the entire school will know by dinner."

Scorpius can't help laughing. "I don't think so. She's a good friend. Although she's also a demon from hell, so you can never be too sure."

"Well." Al reaches out to him. "If we're damned for a penny, we may as well be damned for a pound."


	7. Chapter 7

XX

Rose is unexpectedly relaxed when Scorpius finds her just before dinner. This may have something to do with the fact that she is wrapped in the arms of James Potter, who is looking at her with an expression of surprised adoration.

"Um ..." Scorpius begins eloquently.

She stands up quickly, rearranging her skirt and blouse as surreptitiously as possible. "Um ..." she replies.

James continues the Potter children's run of successfully explaining the universe that day. "I am so sorry," he tells them. "I was such an idiot and pushed Rose until she turned to you, even though I should have known all along how you felt about Al. If you both decided to hate me, I'd completely understand."

Scorpius bursts out laughing. "You're dreadful. You can't even fake sincerity for me and Rose. Honestly, James, if Rose didn't have the biggest smile I've ever seen on her face, I'd tell her what a bad person you are."

"Oi!" James grabs Rose and pulls her to his side. "Hush your mouth or I'll tell Al you're actually straight."

Rose laughs. "Oh as though anyone would believe that," she says, rolling her eyes comedically. "I really am stupid sometimes ..."

Scorpius blushes. "I do fancy you," he says, "just not as much. It's always been Al ..."

Rose kisses his cheek lightly, like she used to, and blushes slightly when she sees the bruise she has left there. "I know. And much as it horrifies me to say this, it's always been James."

James holds her tightly. "Good. Keep it that way. All other girls are dead to me."

"Yes, yes they are," she tells him, smiling wickedly. "So," she asks Scorpius, "where is Al?"

"Gone to find Lily and say thanks. I should join him, actually."

"Ok, bye." James waves with one hand in the subtle fashion they've all come to know and tolerate.

Laughing, Scorpius moves off to find Al. He is out by the greenhouses, still looking for Lily. There is no one about, so Scorpius kisses the back of his head. Al turns, smiling. "Hey, you," he says.

"Where's Lil?" Scorpius asks.

"Haven't found her yet. Hugo says she went off with Piers Duke and Maisie says she went off with Ryan Timms."

"You don't think ..."

"I would put nothing past her," Al says, grinning.

Scorpius can't resist that grin, and so, when Professor Longbottom comes around the side of his nursery, he finds the boys in each other's arms. "Malfoy, Potter," he says cheerily.

They spring apart. "Sorry, sir," Scorpius stammers.

"Perfectly fine, Scorpius, where would sixteen-year-old students be without the greenhouses? Takes me back ..."

"To when you were a student, sir?" Al asks, smiling happily.

Professor Longbottom laughs. "Merlin no, dreadful years, werewolves, Umbridge and Voldemort. No, I was thinking of last week ..."

Both boys laugh and their Herbs master tells them to make sure they're back inside in time for dinner, then leaves them to their own devices.

"Told you," Al says, with only a trace of smugness.

"Do you think it will all be that easy?" Scorpius is a little nervous.

"Only one way to find out," Al replies, taking his hand and holding on to it as they head back into the castle.

They pass Professor McGonagall as they walk through the oak doors. "Scorpius, I was hoping to see you," she says. "May I borrow him for a moment, Mr Potter? I'll return him shortly."

"Yeah, sure ..." Al is too startled to say anything else.

She walks a few steps away with Scorpius, then smiles at him conspiratorially. "I just had a word with Professor Longbottom, and I wanted to say about time. We had a bet with Professor Flitwick that the two of you would work things out before you left school, Neville and I are ten Galleons up."

Scorpius has rarely been this startled. "You are terrible gossips!" he exclaims. "I thought you were meant to be role models!"

Professor McGonagall chuckles quietly. "Oh Scorpius, it's adorable that you'd still think that in the face of all available evidence. Though we are all very good at actual magic ..."

He can't help laughing, too, and she pats his cheeks. "You've brought a smile to my face, and that's always something to be glad about. Now scamper off with your young man and break the hearts of all those young girls. They could do with a spot of toughening up."

"James is going out with Rose, now," he tells her.

"Well, there's a mercy," McGonagall laughs. "That just leaves the Duke and Jigger boys as the main causes of tersely worded letters from parents. On your way, I'll see you in class tomorrow."

Scorpius doesn't tell Albus what his mentor has said, but as they walk hand in hand into the Great Hall, he is smiling broadly.

The final Hogsmeade weekend of the year is a fortnight after Liberation Day. Narcissa Malfoy Owls to say that she will be in town and would love to have lunch with all the children, then spend the afternoon catching up with Scorpius. The Potter/Granger/Weasley clan thinks this is a brilliant idea, particularly when Narcissa says it's fine for Lily to bring Piers and Ryan and for Hugo to bring a date, too. In the end, Oonagh Quigley agrees to accompany him, because there is such a thing as a free lunch, if you plan for it.

Scorpius Owls the Three Broomsticks to book their usual dining room, and adds that a more adult menu might be in order, quite aware that Lily's usual treat choice of fish finger sandwiches will attract scandalised looks from his grandmother.

On the day itself they resemble nothing so much as a gaggle of geese as they traipse through the town flapping their robes and giggling. Narcissa Malfoy is wearing her saintly patience face by the time they have all wombled into the dining room. She kisses Scorpius and Al and smiles at the others. Then runs her eyes around the group once more.

"So, Scorpius, any news?" she asks, flicking her eyes towards Rose and James who are sitting with hands interlaced.

"I am _sure_ I mentioned we broke up in my last letter," he says, with an exaggerated sigh.

She laughs, and laughs harder when Rose's well-aimed bread roll hits Scorpius on the head. "I'm sure you did, dear, I'm an old woman, prone to forgetting."

James argues against this position with such passion that Scorpius expects to see another bread-related act of violence at the table.

"You Gryffindors all look chirpy," Narcissa says brightly.

"I have aced my NEWTs in no small fashion and as of yesterday we are the champions of the world of Quidditch," James explains.

Ryan Timms snorts. "I think you'll find that's England, thank you Viktor Krum!"

"And you only won because the Ravenclaw Seeker was distracted at a critical moment," Oonagh Quigley drawls.

Scorpius changes the topic before anyone can mention again who he was distracted by; the first four thousand rounds of teasing have been quite enough. "Ravenclaw's set for the House Cup, though, if we can stop Lily getting Ryan expelled in the next couple of days."

Ryan laughs, and Lily pulls a face that proves she could gurn for England. Food arrives and arguments are forestalled for a little while.

Narcissa congratulates Scorpius on his speech. Mr Potter forwarded a transcript of it to the _Prophet_ and _The Quibbler_ and gave brief interviews endorsing its position to both papers. Lester's congratulatory Owl simply said: "I'm keeping your seat warm at the Ministry."

Scorpius shares the praise where it belongs. "Couldn't have done it without Al's help on the research, nor the fact that I have excellent role models at home."

Narcissa laughs some more. "Certainly, I put myself forward as a role model for all young people who believe in travelling the world regularly and investigating all the best resort establishments."

Oonagh Quigley starts to pay a lot more attention.

"You know what I mean," Scorpius corrects her. "Because you're not gallivanting around the globe working on your tan, you're hosting galas, introducing people, networking those who would otherwise avoid each other. It's diplomacy by dinner party, and it works a hell of a lot better than sanctions and rules."

Narcissa holds his gaze for a moment, then tosses her hair prettily. "My grandson makes me sound much more capable than I actually am." She winks at them all and they realise that come the end of the universe, Narcissa Malfoy will have a plan for an out.

"So, tell us what really happened when the Manor was attacked," James asks, subtly.

Her smile is genuine this time. "I talked to that poor man. I told him what had happened to my family during the War. He told me what had happened to his. We comforted each other."

James nods, and Scorpius notes that he had not been wholly joking when he had suggested she resolved the crisis with tea and cake. On that topic, he cuts the jam sponge that is on the table and hands plates around to his schoolmates.

School topics fill the remainder of the meal. Lily is confident about her OWLs results, Hugo is, too, though he is more concerned with the fact that he cannot make girls take him seriously. "It's because you're pushy," Oonagh tells him. "Not like Maisie, she's all pliant and biddable." She rises to her feet and thanks Narcissa for the invitation and lunch. "It was wonderful to meet you, my mother always told me what a beauty you are."

Narcissa kisses Oonagh's cheek and sends her warm wishes to her mother. Oonagh says goodbye to the others. "I'm off to find Maisie."

Lily looks after her for a moment. "Me, too," she decides, and follows. Ryan and Piers exchange a brief look of hope and follow her, babbling thanks as they dash out the door.

Narcissa's laugh bubbles over. She waves her hand at Rose and James. "Go, you terrible young people, go off and spend your time with each other and leave an old woman to her family."

They kiss her cheeks and promise to visit her through the holidays. "Cheers Narcissa," James farewells, before whisking Rose away.

Albus is the last to leave, he is shaking his head at his ill-behaved relatives. Narcissa pulls a package out from under the table and hands it to him. "Happy birthday for tomorrow, dear," she tells him. "Must be nice to have it after exams for once."

He opens the wrapping to find a leather-bound notebook, with creamy thick pages inside, plus a hand-crafted quill and bottle of ink. Albus kisses her cheek and hugs her. "That's perfect. Thank you so much!" He turns back to Scorpius and smiles. "I'm off, leave you two for some proper family time. And whatever you choose is fine by me." He squeezes Scorpius's shoulder on the way out.

Narcissa smiles after him. "That's much more like the Al of old. I'm glad, I wasn't sure we'd see him again for a time there."

Scorpius smiles, too. "I love him," he tells her, guilelessly.

His grandmother's eyes widen, and her lips turn up a little at the corners. "Oh," she says, then murmurs in a voice almost too quiet for him to hear that some things never change. She wraps him into a warm hug. "I'm glad," she says. "The two of you have always been so close. It makes me happy to think you'll keep that. Have you told your father yet?"

"Dad?" Scorpius hasn't even considered the question until this moment. "I suppose I ought to ... I think he knows, though, I think he may have known before I did, really."

Narcissa laughs loudly. "You may be right at that. And Mr Potter should know if you and Al are up to it."

Scorpius nods. "Yeah, I think Al has a plan."

She smiles at him for a long time. Eventually he ducks his head, blushing. "You're really growing up, aren't you?" she asks. "I'll miss my little Scorpius, but I think he's become a wonderful young man. Now, do you want to run away and be with Al on this beautiful afternoon?"

He takes her hand. "I'll see him later. I'm exactly where I want to be right now."

Al is waiting for Scorpius when he returns to school. "I told her," he says, taking Al's hand. "She thinks it's wonderful."

"Excellent. Now we just need to tell our parents. Dads first. I have a plan."

Scorpius laughs. "I knew you would."

Al grins evilly at him. "I actually have two plans. The other one involves the fact that tomorrow is my birthday and there's no one in the Prefect's bathroom."

Scorpius has already started to walk in the direction of the fifth floor.

An hour later, the two of them are nestled amid a pile of fluffy white towels on the tiled floor, with another towel thrown over the mermaid painting, for decorum's sake. Al is playing with Scorpius's hair and Scorpius is tracing the lines of Al's ribs. It is possible that they are the most perfectly formed ribs in nature.

A ghostly head with glasses peers through the wall and asks: "Can I come back in, yet?" An equally spectral hand, wearing a finely made sleeve, reaches through the wall and pulls Myrtle back. Scorpius is sure that he knows the voice that whispers "Sshhhh."

On their way up to Gryffindor Tower, Scorpius and Al pass Oonagh Quigley with one arm each around Piers Duke and Ryan Timms. They appear slightly shell shocked but on the whole pleased. Scorpius knows that Al is holding back any number of comments on inter-House unity and he is very happy about this.

The Fat Lady swings the door open in response to Al's "Tempus fugit" and they find Lily feeding sweets to Maisie Carrington, who is lying in her lap, and James and Rose shrugging their shoulders in mute acceptance. "We were about to send out search parties," James tells them. "Except Rose reminded me that you two covered for us on Wednesday."

"And Tuesday, Thursday and Friday," Al adds. The two boys plonk themselves down between the sofas commandeered by their friends.

"Did you tell your grandmother?" Lily asks.

Scorpius nods, smiling. "Yeah, she was really happy. But she said we should definitely tell your dad. I think she's hoping he'll tell your mum."

Rose rolls her eyes. "Trust me, Aunt Ginny won't be a problem. Gran on the other hand ..."

Lily laughs and wrings her hands in a Molly Weasley-like fashion. "Is it because your parents divorced, dear? Did we let you read two many books when you were young? It's not that I mind about the boy thing, your Great-Uncle Bilius, after all, but did it have to be a Malfoy? They're so pale and so likely to attract international incidents ..."

She has to stop there because she can no longer be heard. Gryffindors in other parts of the common room have left off their discussions to giggle, and Albus appears to be dying, he is laughing so hard. Scorpius tries to look sternly at her, but is unable to keep the smile from his face for long enough.

Al's plan is a simple one. Since Ginny Weasley is in the Outer Hebrides with Luna Lovegood for two more days, and Narcissa Malfoy has taken her former daughter-in-law on a spa day, all that remains is for the other two Potter children to bunk off to the Granger-Weasley house. Rose has managed to arrange transport for all of them. On the train she shyly confesses that the second thing her father asked her after she wrote to tell her parents about her break-up with Scorpius was whether it was over another boy.

"I suppose he must have known about you and James," he tells her, happy they are still good friends.

She shakes her head, smiling. "No, that was the first thing he asked."

Scorpius's father grins as he looks levelly at his son. "You've grown in the last few months," he says, and looks as though he might shake his hand for a moment, before deciding to hug him while he still can.

"Dad," Scorpius speaks quickly, sure it will all be fine, unsure that it can possibly be as easy as he hopes. "Can we go to the Potters'?"

His father smiles. "Already sorted, you'll be there next week."

Scorpius shakes his head. "No, I mean now."

Al drags his father over to them, and both men are wearing the same slightly bemused expression. "Hello, Draco," says Mr Potter. "Apparently it's urgent. I've got lunch ready at home and I seem to have all but run out of children, so I don't mind."

"All right, Harry, I'll have my driver follow your car."

Scorpius and his father chat briefly, but by the time the two cars turn onto the A40, they are sitting in comfortable silence. His father is prepared to wait, and Scorpius is ready for anything. Rose has offered them her family's barn if things go completely pear-shaped. Soon they are at the Potters', and Scorpius and his father follow Al and Mr Potter inside.

Mr Potter does indeed have lunch ready, and there are sandwiches neatly lined up on plates in the sun room. Mr Potter takes a plate and sits down in his favourite chair. Scorpius's father sits behind them and waits for the two boys to explain what they're up to. Al picks up and puts down a plate of sandwiches several times. Then he takes Scorpius's hand and turns to his father.

"Dad," he says, gently but seriously. "It's not a schoolboy crush. It's real, it's right, and I'm happy."

Scorpius glances briefly behind him. His father is smiling brightly. He smiles back at him, then turns back to Mr Potter, who is frowning.

"Dad, I'm sorry ..." Al says plaintively.

"What? Oh no ..." Mr Potter shakes his head. "No no no no no, don't be sorry at all! You're great! You two are great and I'm happy for you. Really, really happy." He hugs the two of them, and steps back to look at them. "And I'm sorry I ever said it could be just a crush, as it turns out I'm a complete idiot."

Scorpius hears his father snort with laughter behind him.

Mr Potter looks past them and grins. "Yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence."

Albus turns around and looks at Scorpius's father. "Is it all right with you, Mr Malfoy?"

Scorpius's father smiles softly at the two of them. "I've never seen my son so happy as he is with you. Of course it's all right."

The two boys, and they feel such boys in front of their fathers, hug briefly.

"Draco, I ..." Mr Potter's voice trails off.

Scorpius's father stands up. "We should talk," he says.

Mr Potter regards him for a long moment. "Yeah, yeah, we should."

He opens the door that leads from the sun room to his study, and Scorpius's father walks through it. As he passes by, Mr Potter's hand brushes his shoulder and lingers for a moment. With a quick, shy smile at the two boys, he closes the door behind them.

Albus is staring. "Oh no," he says, shaking his head. "That did not just happen."

"Al ..." Scorpius laughs.

"That's not right, that's not right at all!" he exclaims. "I'm going to have a word." He takes half a step towards the door.

Scorpius pulls Albus back to him and kisses him until he shuts up. "It's a perfect June day. You and I are going to swim in the river."

Al relents, accepting that protest is hopeless. "Ok, fine. Have it your way. I'll grab some bathers."

Scorpius looks at him, raising one fine eyebrow. Al laughs, picks up two of the towels that are kept by the garden door and together they walk out into the sun and down towards the willows swaying in the breeze.


End file.
